Maharashtra's midday meal scheme in tatters

Congress corporator Ajanta Yadav’s act of offering top officials of the BMC’s education department substandard khichdi from municipal schools may be seen as a gimmick, but the larger issue that she has raised — that the midday meal scheme in Maharashtra is in tatters — should not be missed.

To understand the significance of the scheme, one needn’t look beyond Tamil Nadu, where it was first implemented by MG Ramachandran in 1982 and is a key reason that state is now near the top in most development indices. Contrast this with Maharashtra, where the need for such a scheme assumes greater significance considering the alarming rise in malnutrition and starvation deaths. Not long ago, a study revealed that only 12% of Maharashtra’s 70 lakh students got cooked meals in violation of the Supreme Court’s guidelines.

The midday meal scheme — at least as a concept — is one of the few areas where state intervention can leave a lasting impact and lift up the poor. Though it is a nationally instituted scheme with ample funds set aside by the Centre as well as the states, implementation has always been a problem, especially in Maharashtra, because local administrations, quite literally, make a meal of it.

The scheme is critical in more ways than one. Not only does it ensure that every child’s nutritional needs are taken care of, it also increases school enrolment. Maharashtra, once considered a ‘developed state’, is now facing a plethora of problems, chief among them being farmer suicides and malnutrition, thanks to the short-sightedness of its self-serving politicians. Failing to ensure that our children are fed well will nudge the state into an abyss, climbing out of which will be very difficult.