School Health Programme a failure in State
'Cooks for Mid-Day Meal Scheme not trained'
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, July 25 2013: A report of the Ministry of Human Resource Development for the year 2012-13 has revealed that the "School Health Programme" taken up as an important component of the UPA Government's flagship Mid-Day Meal Scheme has failed in the State.

According to the report, the Mid-Day Meal Scheme has been implemented to mitigate problems of malnutrition and ill-health among millions of children across the country.

However, the State Government has failed to carry out regular health checks of children to diagnose problems of malnutrition, anaemia, hearing problems, skin diseases, heart defects, physical disabilities and learning disorders.

The programme also includes immunization against diseases and introduction of counselling services and regular yoga practice.

However, according to the report, no health checks of the children were carried out by Manipur and five other state governments throughout the year.

In comparison, states including Andhra Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh have topped the list of states in effective implementation of the health programme.

According to State Education Department, 2,25,718 children are provided mid-day meal in the State at the levels of both primary and upper primary.

The report further mentioned that Haryana was sanctioned 60,413.37MT of food grains but it could utilize 46,626.68MT, which comes around to just 77% of the total grains.

The pace of the construction of kitchen-cum-stores is also very slow in Haryana and according to the ministry, it needs urgent attention.

Haryana was sanctioned 11,483 kitchens-cum-stores during 2006-07 to 2012-13 but has been able to construct only 5,417 kitchens till now, which comes around to mere 47% construction.

The construction of 3,360 kitchens has not been started as yet while the construction of 2,706 kitchens is underway, added the report.

Besides having the lowest number of children covered under the midday meal scheme, the union territory of Chandigarh also used just 55% of the food grains it was sanctioned.

Sikkim, with 54% utilization, is the only other state below Chandigarh in the list of 35 states and UTs.

According to the report, Chandigarh was sanctioned 1,545.60MT of food grains but it could use only 845.67MT in 2012 .

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