Though ahead of Gujarat, Maharashtra lags in midday meal implementation

The ministry of human resources and development recently released for the first time the rankings of the midday meal scheme implementation by states in the country, placing Gujarat 25th and Maharashtra 19th, much behind J&K, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. Bihar came in 5th. Delhi is at the bottom.

The top five performers are Karnataka (77.79%), Punjab (76.81%), Daman & Diu (71.4%), Himachal Pradesh (71.31%) and Bihar (70.36%). The states were given marks on the basis of coverage of beneficiaries, food grain consumption against the allocation, monitoring of kitchens, infrastructure and hygiene of the food.

The survey was conducted in the first quarter of the financial year (April-June 2013), a month before the midday meal tragedy in Bihar, which claimed the lives of 23 children.

Maharashtra’s score is 58.47% and the state’s detailed report card revealed major shortcomings.

As against 21/20 in fund utilisation, it has scored only 1.78 out of 20 in supervision and monitoring.

Mahavir Mane, director of primary education, said, “Very few schools in the state took part in the survey, mainly because they were closed due to summer vacations when the survey was being done.”

“We continue the midday meal scheme during summer vacations in drought-hit areas, but many of those schools didn’t share the data due to lack of awareness,” he said.

However, the state education department has already instructed all education officers in the state to share the data for the survey for the next quarter.

The rankings
1 Karnataka

2 Punjab

3 Daman & Diu

4 Himachal Pradesh

5 Bihar

6 Haryana

7 Chandigarh

8 Uttarakhand

9 Jammu & Kashmir

10 Chhattisgarh

11 West Bengal

12 Kerala

13 Arunachal Pradesh

14 Nagaland

15 Uttar Pradesh

16 Rajasthan

17 Mizoram

18 Tripura

19 Maharashtra

20 Andhra Pradesh