In News:

• The Central Government has directed the States and Union Territories to carry out the social audit of the Mid-Day Meal Scheme in every district by November 30^th.

What’s in today’s article:

• About Mid-Day Meal Scheme (Objectives, Features, Implementation, Funding)
• News Summary

About Mid-Day Meal Scheme:

• The Mid-Day Meal Scheme was started in India on 15^th August 1995 as ‘National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE)’.
• It was renamed as ‘National Programme of Mid-Day Meal in Schools’ in October 2007, also known as the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Scheme.
• The current version of the programme, renamed PM Poshan Shakti Nirman or PM Poshan in 2021.
• Under the scheme, hot cooked meal per day is provided to all children (studying in Class I to VIII) enrolled in government schools, local body schools, government-aided schools, special training centres (STC), maktabs and madrasas supported under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

Objectives of Mid-Day Meal Scheme:

• To increase the enrolment in the schools of the children who belong to disadvantaged sections of the society.
• To increase the attendance of the children in government and government-aided schools.
• To retain the children studying in class I to VIII.
• To give nutritional support to the children studying in the elementary stage, especially in the drought-affected areas.
• To address hunger and malnutrition and improve socialisation among castes.

Features:

• Every school should have a hygienic cooking infrastructure for hygienically cooked mid-day meals.
• The mid-day meals are to be served only on the school premises on all working days of the school.
• The headmaster or headmistress is entitled to utilise the school funds on account of mid-day meal fund exhaustion.
• Quality items with AGMARK are procured for cooking the mid-day meals in the schools.
• AGMARK is a certification mark employed on agricultural products in India, assuring that they conform to a set of standards approved by the Ministry of Agricultural & Farmers Welfare.
• Two or three adult members from the school management committee taste the cooked meals.
• The Food and Drugs Administration Department of the State can collect samples for ensuring the quality and nutritional value of the meals.
• Food allowance is provided to the children when the cooked meals cannot be provided because of unforeseen circumstances in the following manner:
• Quantity of the food grains according to the entitlement of a child, and
• Cooking cost prevailing in the respective state.

Calorie intake:

• The calories intake prescribed per child per school day is as follows:
• 

Implementation and Funding:

• Each State/UT has to set up State Steering-cum Monitoring Committees (SSMCs) at the State, District and Block level to oversee the implementation of this scheme, including establishing a mechanism to maintain the quality and nutritional standards of the meals.
• This is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.
• Hence, the cost is shared between the Centre (60%) and States (40%).
• Sharing is 90:10 for the Northeastern states, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, while the Centre bears 100% of the costs in UTs without legislature.
• Concerned Ministry: Ministry of Education

News Summary:

• The Central Government has directed the states and Union Territories to carry out the social audit of the mid-day meal scheme in every district by November 30^th.
• Local authorities across the country, running behind schedule in completing the task, which is mandatory under the National Food Security Act, 2013.
  • Under the provisions of Section 28 of National Food Security Act, 2013 social audit of the Mid-Day Meal scheme is mandatory.
• States which have not carried out social audits in 2021-22 include Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Punjab, Odisha, Haryana, Chhattisgarh.
• Many have cited school closure on account of the Covid-19 pandemic as a reason for not doing it.

Benefits of Social auditing:

• It creates awareness among beneficiaries about the scheme,
• It empowers public/beneficiaries to hold the government accountable,
• It addresses problems and identify bottlenecks at the grassroots level so that strategic approach may be adopted for effective implementation of the scheme and
• It also helps in popularizing and strengthening the scheme at the grassroots level.