Significance of the Issue
Millions of children in India sleep unfed every day. Their school career is interrupted because of constant money constraints. Instead of going to school, young children are made to work alongside their parents to gather a decent amount of income to run the house hold for basic necessities such as food and shelter. This disables the child of education which can secure his life in the future.
Children living in the circumstances mentioned above are provided with little or no food and remain illiterate for their entire life. Their parents do not enrol them in school because that would mean spending more money and less income if the child does not work. The parent’s ideology makes sense but it leads to an illiterate nation and abuse of children. The central government of India began the mid day meal scheme to reach across the nation and help eradicate malnutrition and class room hunger. Free meals were also used as an incentive to convince more rural parents to send their children to school. Other prime reasons included gender equality, enhancement of cultural diversity between the peer group and extermination of descriminaition between castes.
On September 28th 2001, a law was passed by the Supreme Court of India, to ensure the incorporation of each Indian state with regard to the mid day meals scheme.
Within 6 months, all state governments were asked to provide children attending government schools with a mid day meal free of all costs to the child.
MID DAY MEAL SCHEME (MDMS) [1]
However, despite the government efforts, many states refused to follow the orders. There still remains fistful of states which have not complied or lack participation till date.
Though the mid day meal scheme has not achieved complete national participation, the midday meal programme covers 11.97 crores of school children across India. These children study between classes I to VII and are a part of the 12.79 lakh schools which provide mid day meals.
[2]The government entitles each child 1 fresh, hot mid day meal every working school day. Government schools are supplied with food grains by the central govern ment, free of all costs. Children studying in classes I-V (primary classes) must receive 100 gm food grain, 20 gm pulses and 50 gm vegetables each day. Children studying in classes VI –VIII (upper primary) must receive150 gm food grain, 30gm pulses and 75 gm vegetables each day. The cooking expenses are provided by the central government to each state/union territory. For primary classes, Rs. 1.58 is spent per student per day. Similarly, Rs. 2.10 is spent per student per day studying in upper primary classes. However, the North eastern states receive Rs.1.89 and Rs 2.42 respectively per child, per day.
[1] Extracted from: INDIA, SUPREME COURT OF. “SUPREME COURT ORDER OF NOVEMBER 28, 2001 .” Right to food. http://www.righttofoodindia.org/orders/nov28.html (accessed January 14, 2009).
[2] Statistics provided by Mr. Vikram Sahay.
