YEARS FOR FRUIT; MONTHS FOR SALARY

Uttar Pradesh has implemented neither the increased cooking cost nor the honorarium for workers. Instead, payments are delayed and children served poor quality school meals.

- Sheena Sachdeva

It has been more than four months since Uttar Pradesh's mid-day meal cooks have been paid. Despite requests and representations made to the state and district administrations, no action has been taken, said Veena Gupta, head of the Uttar Pradesh chapter of the All India Mid-Day Meal Workers Association.

The mid-day meal scheme was renamed and subsumed within the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman [PM POSHAN] in 2021. With the poor quality of food and workers unpaid for months, the scheme has failed in its promise of "improving the nutritional status of school-age children nationwide" in the country, say activists. The mid-day meal (MDM) scheme is arguably the world's largest school lunch programme; it provides hot, cooked meals to school children in Classes 1 to 8.

As per government data, in UP, there are 3,77,520 cooks engaged in more than 144 lakh primary and upper primary schools across the state. While mid-day meal cooks provide food in schools in rural areas, the state government has engaged non-government organisations (NGOs) to provide meals in most schools situated in urban areas. While teachers of urban schools complain of poor quality food and lack of dishes per the menu, teachers in rural areas receive delayed funds and honorarium, again leading to poor quality food for children.

In May 2022, the chief minister Yogi Adityanath's government allocated Rs. 3,548.93 for the state share in the MDM scheme. Funding is shared between the union and state governments in a 60:40 ratio.

Pending salaries, delayed funds