There146;s no free lunch

The Sunday Express found two causes for this rotten state of affairs. First, the local politics of gram pradhans and the corporators and second, the poor monitoring of the public distribution system in the state.

For all involved, this social welfare scheme has now turned into a profitable business. Providing about 16 crore kg 1,65,625 mt of food grain to 1.86 crore students of the state8217;s 94,000 schools every year has become a business that everyone wants a slice of. All except the students.

THERE are as many theories as there are food poisoning cases in UP. In one instance, it was discovered that rival groups were using the scheme to pull down a gram pradhan. In Kanpur, the gram pradhan admitted that the rival group was purposely poisoning school meals to tear apart his reputation.

Gram pradhans in Hardoi and Sultanpur level similar accusations. At other places gram pradhans have even refused to implement the scheme, citing anomalies in the system.

It is the defects in the working of the public distribution system that have been such a stumbling block. The fair price shop owners not only hold up the supply for months but also distribute rotten grain for the mid-day meal while selling the allocated stock at higher prices in the market.

In January itself, police intercepted a truck carrying grain in Kushinagar district. Later it was discovered that this was the mid-day meal supply that was on its way to being sold in the open market.

Says Keshav, a social worker in Deoria district, 8216;8216;Only 1-2 per cent of the schools are getting a proper supply. Whoever is given charge, tries to earn maximum out of it. Be it the gram pradhans who enter into a settlement with the fair price shop owners or the teachers who misguide their schools. Few gram pradhans and local education officers dare to report about the faulty system as they too are a part of it. As a result despite the big investment that goes into this scheme, only a few students are able to benefit from it.8217;8217;

He adds, 8216;8216;Often we catch trucks that are selling the mid-day meal supply in the market but then kotedars fair-price shop owners go free because of the intervention of some influential people.8217;8217;

WHILE schools that get their meals are not willing to risk eating them, for others to eat or not to eat is not even a dilemma. In Hardoi district, for instance, some schools have not received their mid-day meal supply for the last six months. Though to be fair to the FCI, they have been been supplying the errant grain. But no one8217;s sure to whom.

The district supply office found the supply 8216;8216;interrupted8217;8217; and helpfully told the villagers that there would be no mid-day meal scheme in their schools.

8216;8216;We were informed that the scheme had stopped long ago. Our source of information are teachers, gram pradhans or the district supply officers and all of them gave us the same story. After three to four months, we realised that it was not true and filed many complaints. Though the supply was resumed, no one was held accountable for the lapse and there was no account of the missing grain,8217;8217; says Jitendra Dixit, an activist in Hardoi8217;s Majhgaon village.

AT present, the scheme is not implemented properly in any district of UP, except Lucknow where NGOs run it. In many districts, parents have formed a committee that visits every school in their area during meal time and ensures children don8217;t eat the food if it8217;s stale. On January 4, 2006, women in the Adampur area of Varanasi district threw out all the food on finding insects in it.

But it will take more than this home intervention to get the bite back into the mid-day meal.

The distribution chain
THE Food Corporation of India FCI gives the mid-day food grain to the state Food and Essential Commodities Corporation UPSFECC. The UPSFECC takes this supply from the FCI godown after signing quality as well as quantity approval papers. In turn it gives this supply to the local fair price shop owners. In the village this supply is picked up by the gram pradhan, in cities it is the responsibility of the corporators or head teachers.

Ideally the meals should be prepared in school kitchens or kitchen shades under the supervision of teachers or the gram pradhan. But despite regular funding by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, kitchen shades are a distant dream for many schools. While some schools don8217;t have any, in others the shades have been in the process of construction for months. In the absence of kitchen shades, food is prepared in the open.

Fodder for Politics
MINISTER for basic education Kiran Pal Singh blames the central government- run Food Corporation of India for the mismanagement. 8216;8216;The grain supplied by the FCI is not up to the mark. The state government cannot do much about it because the FCI comes under the central government,8217;8217; he says.

But he says some mistakes are inevitable considering the scale of the mid-day meal scheme. He goes ahead and thanks god the students had only fallen ill and not died after eating the meal.

The task force set up by Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav puts all the blame on the FCI. Hukkum Singh, senior regional manager of the Food Corporation of India refutes the charges. 8216;8216;We have our quality control system and any grain that comes to us goes through many quality checks. If it8217;s found to be of low quality, it is returned. Moreover, any agency that takes grain from us also checks the quality and quantity of it and signs on the acceptance papers. Thus, no one can blame us for providing low quality grain.8217;8217;