The recent horror in Bihar should not make us deride the mid-day meal scheme. Considering that 12 Crore children are being fed on a daily basis, it is one of the rare government schemes that is decently managed all over the country. Despite the stories that appear in the media, the overall quality of food is not bad. Tamil Nadu is a shining example of the scheme. The meal in the Delhi school where my wife served as a teacher was very good, but my wife told me that the students who had come from Tamil Nadu kept complaining to her that the fare in the Tamil Nadu schools was much better. The food is outsourced in Delhi and the only responsibility of the school authorities is to ensure that the quality is not bad. In many other states the situation is different. The cooking is usually done in school premises under filthy conditions. This is the case even in the much- acclaimed Tamil Nadu. One reason is that the allocation of funds for the scheme is laughable. The other important reason is that the number of employees engaged in the scheme is much less than what is required for the scheme to run efficiently. If this raises the hackles of all those who think that the governments in India are bursting at the seams with employees spilling over, here are some statistics. The US, the mecca of free enterprise and private initiative, has about 6.9 government employees for hundred persons. In India We have just 1.6 government employees per hundred persons. In states like Bihar, the figure is 0. 45 employee per hundred persons. Thus it is evident that public services in India are grossly understaffed. Please don’t get me wrong. I agree that a large section of government employees is inefficient and corrupt. But that is a separate problem, which has to be tackled differently. In fact, one of the main reasons for inefficiency and corruption in public services is the shortage of staff. For the mid-day meal scheme to function without any major mishap, the government should involve the parents in the scheme. One simple way of involving the parents is by stipulating that every day, one parent should taste the food and certify its quality. The other important issue that is to be tackled is the ghettoization of schools. For the conditions of the schools to improve, India should devise a method that ensures that children from different economic conditions study in the same school. It is not an accident that most of the children who died in this tragedy were from the most deprived classes.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 03:42:45 +0000
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