Mid Day Meal Programme
Annual Work Plan and Budget 2011-12
I. Introduction.
1.1. Brief history.
Mid day meal programme was implemented in 7 educationally and economically backward north-eastern districts of the State during 2001-02. Later, the scheme was extended to other districts of the state in a phased manner.
As per the directions of the Supreme Court of India the scheme of providing hot cooked mid day meal was implemented for all the children of classes 1 to 5 of both Government and Government aided primary schools. The scheme also extended to 6 to 7th std children. Now the Government of India is funding the scheme for children of classes 1 to 8.
Government of Karnataka is providing hot cooked meals to the children of 9th & 10th standards of government and government aided schools out of its own resources.
The main objectives of the programme are:
· To improve enrolment and attendance.
· To improve retention rate.
· To improve child health by increasing nutrition level.
· To improve learning ability levels of children.
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Attendance of the school children has improved to a great extent due to mid day meals provided in the school and in turn it has resulted in retention and higher rate of learning capabilities among children.
Since the additional Nutritional tablets are provided to children in schools, their health has improved and they will not absent themselves on health reasons as it was in the earlier days. They attend regularly and participate enthusiastically through out the day in all activities of the school both inside and outside.
With the introduction of Suvarna Arogya Chaitanya Programme, parents feel that any serious health problems with their children is treated free of cost and also regular health check up done in school which has lessened their burden. Children’s education, food and health are taken care by the school authorities, so there is good attendance and retention. These aspects have motivated parents to send their children regularly to school without fail. Parents feel that their children are no more burden or expensive to them with regard to food, education and health. They thank the Education Department for this great service.
Hot cooked meal provided to 1 to 5th class children gives about 491 calories. Similarly the mid day meal provided to classes 6 to 10 will give 728 calories.
Only Women are appointed as cooks to prepare the food. The cooks are appointed by a three member committee consisting of SDMC president, Gram panchayath and Head master of the school. From 01.12.2009, cooks are paid Rs 1000 per month as honorarium. This is shared in 75:25 ratio by GOI and GOK respectively. Head cook will get Rs 100/- in addition as she maintains accounts. This amount is borne by the State Government. At present there are 99338 cooks working under MDM programme. For 2011-12 proposal is made to provide 33472 additional cook cum helpers in Government Aided schools, AIE centres, NCLP schools and schools where NGOs are providing MDM.
Cooks are provided by categorising the kitchen on the basis of number of children as per Government of India norms; as
follows:
Category / No.of children / No.of CooksA / 1 to 25 / 1
B / 26-100 / 2
C / 101-200 / 3
D / 201-300 / 4
E / 301-500 / 5
F / 501-800 / 6
G / 801-1100 / 7
H / 1101-1400 / 8
I / 1401-1700 / 9
J / 1701 and above / 10
The suggested menu is as follows.
Monday / Rice Sambar with different varities of vegetablesTuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday / Bisi Bele bath/ Vegetable Pulav
Saturday / Upma with vegetables/ Pongal/idli/dosa
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· The funds are released by the government directly to the chief executive officer of the respective zilla panchayath through annual budget on quarterly basis.
· State level steering cum monitoring committee under the chairmanship of Additional Chief Secretary to Govt oversees the programme in the state.
· District level steering cum monitoring committees under the chairmanship of chief executive officer, zilla panchayath oversees the programme at the district level.
· Taluk level steering-cum-monitoring committees under the chairmanship of assistant commissioners oversee the implementation of the programme in a block.
· District level implementing committees ensure effective implementation of the programme under the chairmanship of the district in-charge minister in a district.
· Nodal officers at district and taluk levels supervise the programme and submit monthly reports.
2. Description and assessment of the programme implemented in the current year 2010-11 and proposal for next year(2011-12) with reference to:
2.1 Regularity and wholesomeness of midday meals served to children; reasons for programme interruptions, if any and planning to minimize them.
Head master and head cooks are advised not to stop mid day meal programme at any condition. If there is interruption in the programme due to shortage of food grains head master of that particular school borrows from the nearest school or from public distribution centre. If there is shortage of funds head master make use of the funds available in the school with the permission of SDMC President and members and as soon as the funds are released it is adjusted to the account. Hence hot cooked sumptuous meal is provided in the school. As on 31-12-2010 we have provided food to children for 148 to 162 days, 158 days on an average. Further 73 days are ahead up to March 31st 2011. Totally it comes up to 221 days to 235 days. For 2011-12 it is being proposed to feed for 233 days.
2.2 System of payment of cost of food grains to FCI. Food grains management, including adequacy of allocation, timeliness of lifting, transportation and distribution, and suitability of storage at different levels? Challenges faced and plan to overcome them.
FCI submits bill to the Chief Executive officer, Zilla Panchayath of the district concerned. After scrutiny bills will be submitted to treasury and once the cheque is obtained it is credited to FCI. All bills are settled till Dec 2010. During 2010-11 Out of Rs 7510.70 lakhs released, Rs 4038.78 has already been paid. Regular monitoring of the payment of cost of food grains is being made in coordination with FCI authorities. This new system of payment at district level has experienced some delay.
It is proposed to release cost of food grains to JDMMS office directly from 2011-12 onwards and once the bills are received from FCI, after scrutiny, payment can be made immediately through RTGS facility. This will avoid delay to a large extent.
Allocation is made on the basis of average number of students partaking mid day meal as on 30th September of previous year. Proper arrangements have been made to lift food grains on time and hence there will not be any shortage of food grains. Rice is lifted from Food Corporation of India based on the release order of the deputy commissioner of the district and stored at Karnataka Food Civil Supplies Corporation godowns at taluk level. Chief executive officers of zilla panchayath lift food grains through contractors from taluk KFCSC godowns to school level. Food grains are lifted well in advance and supplied to schools.
2.3 System for release of funds provided under cooking costs (central and state). Please indicate the dates when the fund was released to directorate / state authority, district / block / gram panchayat and finally to the cooking agency / school.
The total budget provision made including central share for midday meal for classes 1 to 8 is Rs. 59824.83 lakhs for the year 2010-11 State government releases the money to the districts through the annual budget to the zilla panchayaths. The money is being released quarterly by the Govt directly to Zilla Panchayaths. Two months advance is released to the joint account of head cook and the president of school development and monitoring committees through Taluk panchayaths. The funds are released well in advance to SDMCs so that MDM programme runs smoothly without any hindrance.
Details of funds release from State to District, District to Taluk and Taluk to School
Name of the district / Months for which release is made / Release of funds from State to District / District to Taluk / Taluk to School / Name of the district / Release of funds from State to District / District to Taluk / Taluk to SchoolShimoga / Apr to June10 / 17-04-2010 / 10-05-2010 / 12-05-2010 / Chikkaballapur / 17-04-2010 / 21-05-2010 / 25-05-2010
July 10 / 08-07-2010 / 17-08-2010 / 25-08-2010 / 08-07-2010 / 27-07-2010 / 29-07-2010
Aug to Sep 10 / 06-08-2010 / 14-10-2010 / 21-10-2010 / 06-08-2010 / 30-08-2010 / 03-09-2010
Oct to Dec 10 / 29-09-2010 / 11-11-2010 / 20-11-2010 / 29-09-2010 / 20-09-2010 / 28-09-2010
Additional / 18-10-2010 / 18-10-2010 / 28-10-2010 / 29-10-2010
Jan to Mar 10 / 28-12-2010 / 18-01-2011 / 28-12-2010
2.4 System of payment of honorarium to cook-cum helpers and implementing agencies viz. NGOs/SHGs/trust/centralized kitchens etc.,
Payment of honorarium to cook-cum helpers
Funds are released through link document to Zilla panchayath then to Taluk Panchayaths and from Taluk panchayth to SDMC accounts directly two months well in advance and in turn it is paid through bank accounts to cooks in the first week of every month. Head cooks are paid Rs1100/- and others are paid Rs 1000/- per month. They are paid for 10 months in a year. This encourages them to work with better motive.
It is a prior condition that NGOs participating in this mid day meal programme are supposed to bear the expenditure in respect of kitchen sheds, cooks, other infrastructure facilities.
NGOs are provided with 100 gms of rice free of cost and Rs 2.69 cooking cost per child per day for classes 1to 5. Similarly 150 gms of rice and Rs 4.03 cooking cost per child per day for classes 6 to 8 by the Department.
Funds are released from Finance Department to Zilla Panchayath on quarterly basis. Payment of cooking cost is made on the bills submitted to executive officers of the Taluk panchayath. It is counter signed by the Chief executive office of Zilla panchayath. Then it is submitted to treasury and payment is made to NGOs by Executive officer of concerned Taluk Panchayath.
For the year 2011-12 it is proposed to appoint 7718 cook cum helpers to serve food supplied by the NGOs.at the ratio 100:01. The amount required is Rs 578.85 lakh as central share and State share is Rs 192.95 lakhs.
The job chart for helpers is as follows.
o Helpers shall come to school and receive food at school.
o They shall safeguard the food received till it is served to children.
o They shall clean the place of serving and also plates and tumblers both before and after the meals with soaps and detergents provided to them in schools.
o They shall serve food tidily wearing clean hand gloves and head scarf.
o They shall serve the food with love and affection to children to their complete satisfaction without any caste, creed and religious barriers. If necessary even for 2nd round.
o They are totally made responsible for any mishappenings/ untoward happening at food serving place of MDM.
o They shall clean drinking water tank and drums once in a week and see those children drink potable water.
They shall keep the surrounding areas in the school premises very clean, especially where the food is served to children.
2.5 System for procuring cooking ingredients (pulses, vegetables including leafy ones, salt, condiments, oil and fuel etc.,) commodities, which are centrally purchased and supplied to schools or locally purchased at school level.
Government of Karnataka has nominated Karnataka Food and Civil Supplies Corporation to procure and supply oil, salt and pulses and rice to the schools. Cost of vegetables is credited to the SDMC accounts through payees receipt to purchase vegetables locally.
Gas agencies supply gas cylinder to the school. The payment modes differ from place to place according to the local requirements. In some taluks payment is made directly to SDMC accounts and in turn from SDMCs to agencies. In some taluks payment is made centrally at taluk level. New additional connections for newly opened kitchen centres are proposed for the year 2011-12.
2.6 System for cooking, serving and supervising midday meals in the school and measures to prevent any untoward happening.
In Karnataka there are 56384 schools. 44341 Government and 4095 Govt Aided kitchen centres are run by School Development and Monitoring committees covering 44.61 lakh children.
o Cooks take bath everyday and come with clean clothes to cook food. Their personal cleanliness and hygiene is checked by the SDMC and Head master in the school.
o In many of the schools cooks wear head scarf and apron before starting cooking.
o Cooks come to school before commencement of the school. They clean the kitchen. They sweep the floor and swab.
o They clean the foodgrains first and wash vessels and also clean the vegetables and greens. They cut the vegetables.
o As soon as the school prayer is over and attendance is taken, cooks get the indent ie., number of children who consume mid day meal from the Head master of the school.