OneWorld.net (U.S.)

Faced with Parliamentary Standing Committee's criticism on the quality shortfalls in the implementation of the Mid Day Meal sceheme, the Union HRD Ministry on Thursday took a major decision to empower the mothers of 12 crore children for overseeing the feeding operations to ensure both quality and regularity of the MDM. In the recent Standing Committee report, though the MDM came in for praise for its being a success story, but faced criticism on the issue of inconsistent quality and irregularity. The HRD Ministry, which felt that quality control is not properly monitored at the State-level, particularly in blocks and districts of UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand and some other states, decided to involve the mothers in the process. The MDM is feeding 12 crore children at present, and the number is set grow in the next financial year. "If the issue of quality is not addressed now, it will go out of hand," said an official. As per this recent decision, a mother would be required to devote a couple of hours only once or twice a year. Particularly, the Union HRD Ministry believes that the move would force the state governments/UTs to steer the MDM campaign in a more effective manner. Under the new initiative, the state governments/UTs are expected to rollout mass mobilisation campaign to involve mothers at both block and district-level in a greater way. Under the revised scheme, a provision was made for providing a cooked meal (in place of dry rations) for children studying in classes I to V in Government and -aided schools. Source: The Pioneer More