SHILLONG: The report of the 5th joint review mission on the mid-day meal scheme implementation in Meghalaya asserted that mid-day meal was not prepared regularly in schools.
The report says that the frequency ranges from one to three or sometimes four days in a week and some Principals were candid enough to admit that mid-day meal is not prepared during the rainy season because it becomes difficult to serve it to the students.
All the Principals/Head Teachers informed the members of JRM Team that mid-day meal is not served for two weeks during half yearly examinations held during June-July and annual examinations held in the last fortnight of November. Further, the mid-day meal is also not cooked for 3-4 days during Quarterly Tests.
The JRM has also examined the record wherever it was made available, and found that almost all the schools had reported less coverage (2 days in most cases) of working days every month, to the Directorate of Education.
JRM Team also visited a KynjatShai LP School JongskaiKharang where mid-day meal is not being provided since middle of 2011 and the Head Teacher of the school informed that neither food grain nor funds have been sanctioned to the school in spite of repeated requests to the State Government’s Education Department.
Report said that necessary action may be taken to start the cooking of mid-day meal in the school as the food grain is delivered up to school level by the wholesalers who deliver it up to Fair Price Shops (FPS) only.
“The school authorities have to make repeated visits to the FPSs/wholesalers for ascertaining the availability of food grain. Secondly, the expenditure incurred by the Schools on transportation of food grains from the FPS/wholesalers is not reimbursed to the schools from the Transportation Charges. The State Government should ensure that expenditure incurred by schools etc. on transporting of food grains from FPS etc. to schools is reimbursed from the grant-in-aid for Transportation Assistance for Food grains,” the report said.
The JRM observed poor record keeping in the visited schools, adding Jubilee Presbyterian Upper Primary School and Urmasi U-Joh Presbyterian School did not make any entry in the food grain register, Cash Book etc. since 2012.
According to JRM, the entries in the remaining 80% of the visited schools were not made properly as for instance, some schools had taken loan from School Management Committees of the Government aided schools but it was not shown as a liability.
“When the funds were received from the Directorate of Education, the schools deducted the loan from the grant without showing any adjustment in the cash book,” report said
The committee also observed that some of the schools have made entry in the food grain register about the food grain taken on loan from SMC whenever there was shortage of food grain. But the JRM could not understand how SMC could supply food grain to the school.
“It appears that the schools take food grain on loan from other schools but show it as loan from SMC. It appears that SMC is helping these schools in obtaining loan from other schools or procure it from the market but it can not be treated as food grain loan from SMC,” report said.
“St John Boys High School, Sohra had huge stock of food grains but it was showing negative balance of food grain and this needs to be examined to see whether there is any accounting error,” report said even as it committee felt that due to improper record keeping, the possibility of diversion of food grain from schools cannot be ruled out.