Mid-day meals suffer as self-help groups compete

Statesman News Service

MALDA, Dec. 2. — Implementation of the mid day meal project has been hampered due to a competition amongst groups of self help groups of women in many primary schools, officials said on Friday.

The district officials concluded the matter after collecting information from many spots.

“This is nothing but a competition between the two groups of self help units for cooking and distribution of mid day meal in the primary level schools”, the additional district magistrate (general) said.

It may be noted that the district administration has assigned more than one women’s self help groups for this job to offer them job rotationally.

When one group is working for 15 days another group will be working for the same school but the former one does not want to allow them, official sources said.

On the other hand, the mid meal project is gradually losing its effectiveness in the semi urban areas where the parents are instructing their wards not to take such cooked food in order to avoid problems of health hazards because of its poor quality.

“The quality of the rice is not so good. It is full of insects. The women assigned for cooking do not care to clean the rice”, said a female primary teacher, in the English Bazaar circle.

The additional district magistrate (general), Mr BP Barat, admitted the problem and said: “The mid day meal project is a good bait for some specific areas though the quality of rice is not so good “.

On the other hand, the authorities have failed to implement the project in urban area particularly in English Bazaar.

“We are not responsible for implementing the project in urban areas”, said Mr Goutam Chakraborty, the sabhadhipati of Malda zilla parishad .

It is learnt that the English Bazaar civic body is planning to implement in its primary schools.

Posted on Dec 3 , 2005 at 08.40 am ( IST)