Kangra, December 4
The mid-day meal scheme for primary schoolchildren in the district has run into rough weather because of ‘mismanagement’ in the department resulting in delay in the disbursement of the grants for the scheme to the teachers facing them to borrow goods from the market at their own level.
Things have become so bad that depot holders have refused to provide schools kerosene and other consumable items resulting in the disruption of regular mid-day meals in some schools. The government had provided adequate budgetary provisions for the scheme but the mismanagement at the block levels is posing problems to the success of the scheme.
According to a survey, teachers in this educational block did not receive funds due to run the scheme and they had to pay through their nose for the much published scheme. A teacher in a single teacher primary school said on the one hand the studies of the children were getting affected by the scheme particularly in the single teacher primary schools and on the other hand now depot owners had started refusing to provide them the eatables on debt.
There are 1755 primary schools in 19 educational blocks of the district and 1,13, 972 children were provided mid-day meals in these schools in the past three months. The State government had sanctioned Rs 98,97,786 a first instalment and Rs 98,55,671 a second instalment for Kangra district under different heads for the scheme but delay in the disbursement of the funds at the block level to the teachers was pushing the programme to the dock.
The Deputy Director of Primary Education, Mr J.C. Bharti, said teachers had been exempted from preparing the meals or distributing it but still they had additional job to purchase the consumable items from depots for the scheme. He said it was the moral duty of all teachers to carry out the programme in the right perspective. He confirmed that his office had received two instalments of the funds in the past three months to the tune of nearly Rs 2 crore. He said funds had been disbursed to the Block Education Officers in advance for onward disbursement to the teachers against bills.
A senior officer of the Deputy Directors of Education’s office said the problem was that at the block-level things were going on smoothly.
Mr P.S. Padda, a central head teacher said the alleged inefficiency at the central head teacher-level was affecting the scheme.
Teacher on condition of anonymity said despite submitting their bills they were not given the funds for the scheme. They alleged that they had to pay from their own pocket for the purchase of the kerosene, fuel or gas in some of the schools.
Because of the hue and cry raised by teachers the local Block Education Office today woke up and decided to withdraw Rs 3.75 lakh for the disbursement among teachers for the mid-day meal scheme.
