Mid-day meal report: Mumbai among lowest performing districts

A recently published report on midday meals under the Centre's Midday meal (MDM) programme on its official website has revealed that Mumbai is one of the lowest-performing regions in the state of Maharashtra with over 32 per cent students in the region not having access to mid-day meals due to various reasons.

As per the statistics stated in the report, 33 per cent students studying under BMC schools and 51 per cent students studying under other schools in the Mumbai region have no access to midday meals. The half yearly evaluation report for 2017 was recently published on the central government's official website for the Mid-day meal scheme. The report further reveals that 259 institutions in the city are still not covered under the MDM scheme.

Of the 3,53,777 students enrolled in the various primary schools in the city, only 2,25,798 students availed the mid-day meal.

"It has been noticed that in Mumbai, the coverage of children 68% is low against the state level of 83% as well as the national average of 74%. It is pertinent to mention here that since last four years Mumbai has been identified as a poor performing district. The state needs to explore the reasons," states the report.

Mumbai fared lower than some of the backward districts like Hingoli (79%) and Gondia (69%).

Ghanashyam Sonar, convenor of Samaan Shikshan Mulbhut Adhikar Samiti (Committee for Equal and Fundamental Right to Education), who has recently written to the BMC to look into this matter, said that the corporation should ensure that the programme is implemented well.

"Officials should take responsibility for this failure and should work towards making meals more accessible as well as nutritional and tasty" added Sonar.

Despite repeated calls, Shubhada Gudekar, Chairperson of BMC's education committee could not be reached for a comment.