100 pc mid-day meal report flummoxes Education Department
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, December 02 2011: Cent percent mid-day meal provision claim by Zonal Education Officers (ZEOs) has generated strong suspicion on authenticity of the report, disclosed an Education (Schools) Department source.

On instruction of the Department, ZEOs concerned submitted their respective annual reports for the year 2011-2012 with regard to the mid-day meal scheme wherein it had been mentioned that each and every enrolled students benefited from the Centrally-sponsored programme.

Such an identical claim of the ZEOs based on inputs reportedly provided by the Assistant Inspectors in-charge is said to have sparked a hot debate in the Education (S) Department circle with the implementing department both flummoxed and unconvinced.

It is informed that the Department authorities have raised posers to the ZEOs on the punctuality of the enrolled students as well as whether no student had ever fallen ill during the calendar year.

In order to ensure that the Department does not face embarrassment in case the Central Government scrutinise the report on cent percent provision of the mid-day meal scheme it has been decided that the scheme implementation percentage would be referred as 85-90 percent, confided the source.

The source also disclosed that the 85-90 percent scheme implementation record had come light during inspection visit by designated officials of the Department.

On the Department's instruction to the ZEOs for a detailed report on the impact of economic blockade in the implementation of the scheme, information has been received here that with the exception of 30-40 schools all the other institutions reported 'no impact' claims.

The source further stated that taking into account transport bottleneck, maintaining buffer stock of rice for three months had been a norm for the past many years and only because of such an arrangement could it be ensured that provision of rice under the mid-day to the AIs concerned continued without any hitch.

Conveying that the ZEOs also serve as District Officer of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the source revealed that there is contradiction in the number of students covered by SSA and those benefiting from the mid-day meal scheme .

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