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Centre seeks report on Midday Meal Scheme
The Centre has pulled up the State for failing to report the details of Midday Meal Scheme regularly through SMS to the concerned department of the Union Government. At a recent meeting with the officials of the Education Department of the State, the Centre observed that only 50 per cent of the schools of the State have been reporting the details of Midday Meal regularly.
Centre asks all States and Union territories to send reports on Midday Meal Scheme on regular basis and link Aadhaar numbers of the students to their individual information by making them to enrol for the Aadhaar number
Hyderabad: The Centre has pulled up the State for failing to report the details of Midday Meal Scheme regularly through SMS to the concerned department of the Union Government. At a recent meeting with the officials of the Education Department of the State, the Centre observed that only 50 per cent of the schools of the State have been reporting the details of Midday Meal regularly.
The Centre noted that 18 States have reported data for less than 50 per cent of schools which includes Telangana, Puduchery, Andman, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka, Mizoram, Punjab, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Chattisgarh, Haryana, Manipur, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Goa and Lakshdweep have been reporting the data of less than 50 per cent of the schools. These States were told to take steps to ensure reporting of data of all the schools.
Centre has implemented Automated Monitoring System for Midday Meal programme throughout the country. The target date of implementation was July 1, 2016. However, most of the States failed to implement it and have requested the Centre to extend the date up to April 30, 2017. Out of the 36 States, 27 States and Union territory have adopted the system. Nine States are yet to rollout the system.
Even after taking lot of time the States were unable to report the data regularly and completely. The Centre has made reporting the MDM data regularly mandatory with a view to curtail irregularities. Under Automated Monitoring System the headmasters of the schools were directed to send the data of Midday Meal through SMS to a portal of the Union Government. This report contains the details like number of students who had the meal, quantity of commodities and others.
During the meeting, all the States were told to link Aadhar number of the student to their individual information by making them to enrol for the Aadhar number.
Last date to complete Aadhar enrolment is August 31, 2017 and States were told to strictly adhere to this date. The Centre observed that Andhra Pradesh, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli have achieved 100 per cent of Aadhar enrolment of the students. About 11 States have achieved the target up to 90 per cent. Rest of the States has achieved the target from 70 to 90 per cent.
Various States have informed the Centre that lack of awareness on the location of the Aadhar camp and lack of coordination between the officials of Education Department and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) have led to delay in completing Aadhar enrolment.
The States were told that a third-party evaluation of Midday Meal programme would be taken up in 20 States. States were told to provide necessary logistic support and data for conducting the evaluation.
By N M Satheesh
