Thought for food
The success of the mid-day meal
scheme in states
like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka should
be proof enough that this programme can be
a winner. So it is puzzling as to why
Minister for Women and Child Development
Renuka Choudhary should balk at the ‘impracticality’ of the scheme and propose
that pre-cooked packaged food should replace hot meals for children. Amartya
Sen, who certainly knows his onions about food security, has expressed his
reservations over the minister’s proposal. While there is no doubt that the
government must withdraw from many parts of administration, nutrition for
children — linked as it is to primary education — is one ‘sector’ that it
cannot abdicate from.
But let’s not dismiss the minister’s proposal
outright. She may have a point when she says that it is more feasible to have
pre-packaged food for mid-day meals. The point, however, remains that our track
record of leasing out such issues to contractors has, to put it gently, not
been successful. Ms Choudhury cannot be unaware that malnutrition among
children has decreased by a paltry 1 per cent in the last eight years. The
mid-day meal is a sure shot way of combating this. There are several reasons
why the hot meal scheme must not be scrapped. For one, it provides an incentive
for children who would otherwise be not in
school and be put to work to be sent
to school. It also gives women in the area a source of employment and,
therefore, encourages them to send their children to school. The Planning
Commission has found that the mid-day meal scheme is a method of strengthening
the panchayati raj system, which again translates into empowerment for women.
It is no secret that lack of nutrition is a major problem for children in the
age group of 3 to 6. This is precisely why the mid-day meal programme was
instituted. The UPA government assumed office on the promise that it would take
care of the aam aadmi. The mid-day meal scheme is one way of developing
infrastructure at the grassroots while fulfilling the needs of the people who
are overlooked by the State.
While privatization is welcome, the State must
have fool-proof systems in place to ensure that something as crucial as meals
for children are not tampered with. To cite Tamil Nadu again, the state not
only provides hot meals for children but also gives a small stipend for parents
to send their children to school. The results have been encouraging. These are
things the minister needs to ponder over before making such sweeping changes in
a scheme that seems to work so well in many states.