{"id":127714,"date":"2021-08-21T19:36:07","date_gmt":"2021-08-21T14:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=127714"},"modified":"2021-08-22T08:45:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-22T03:15:28","slug":"what-ails-mid-day-meal-schemes-implementation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/what-ails-mid-day-meal-schemes-implementation\/","title":{"rendered":"What ails mid-day meal scheme\u2019s implementation?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.business-standard.com\/article\/current-affairs\/a-chicken-and-egg-situation-problems-in-mid-day-meal-scheme-implementation-121081300124_1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Business Standard<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance<\/strong>: issues with the Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis<\/strong>: Analysis of data shows that India has fewer states now providing egg in mid-day meal schemes, even fewer are provisioning fruits and only a third of the states\/UTs are giving milk to children.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>In June 2021, the Kerala High Court put a temporary stay on a controversial order passed by the Lakshadweep administration banning chicken and meat from the mid-day meal scheme. While passing the order, the division bench asked the government why it was upsetting the food habits of the region.<\/p>\n<p>Lakshadweep is among the few states which offer meat and chicken to its school going students as part of the mid-day meal programme.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Issues with MDMS<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Analysis of annual work plan and budget reports from the states for 2015-16 and 2020-21 shows the following issues:<\/p>\n<p><strong>On provisioning of meat\/chicken<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>While five states offered meat\/chicken\/fish in their mid-day meal scheme\u00a0in 2015-16, the <strong>number has now reduced<\/strong> to three. (Tripura only offers chicken sometimes, whenever local social workers provide it).<\/li>\n<li>Jammu and Kashmir has <strong>stopped offering meat products<\/strong>, and so has Nagaland.<\/li>\n<li>In fact, of all the states, <strong>Lakshadweep remains the only state<\/strong> which offers a meat\/chicken\/fish diet four times a week to its school-going children.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>On provisioning of eggs<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Although the National\u00a0Institute of Nutrition has recommended egg as part of the mid-day meal diet, <strong>less than half of the states and UTs<\/strong> have implemented the scheme.<\/li>\n<li>According to 2020-21 data of the 36 states and UTs, <strong>only 15 offered egg to students.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>There is a <strong>wide variation<\/strong> among states in the provisioning of eggs. In Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, the states serve eggs five days a week; in Odisha, Puducherry and a few other states, it is served twice a week.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>On provisioning of fruits:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Milk and fruits are <strong>rarer commodities<\/strong>. Even though demands have been made to include milk in mid-day schemes, analysis shows that only 11 states till now have made provisions to serve milk\u2014higher than 8 in 2015-16.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Only 6 states made provisions to serve fruits in 2020-21<\/strong>, and the count has declined from 2015-16 when 12 states were serving fruits.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Centre&#8217;s expenditure<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>centre\u2019s expenditure on mid-day meal programmes has remained constant<\/strong> over the years.<\/li>\n<li>In 2014-15, the centre allocated Rs 11,051 crore towards mid-day meal scheme programme, the following year allocation had fallen to Rs 9,236 crore. In 2019-20, only Rs 9,699 crore was allocated towards the programme.\n<ul>\n<li>The centre shares 60% of the cost in the programme with the rest borne by the states.<\/li>\n<li>In the case of union territories, the entire cost is borne by the government of India and for the north-eastern states the share is 90:10.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Success under MDMS<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Reduction of stunting<\/strong>: A recent study published in Nature Communications showed that the prevalence of stunting was significantly lower in areas that implemented the mid-day meal scheme in 2005. Women who received mid-day meal benefits in school were less likely to have stunted children.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Increasing enrollment<\/strong>: One of the goals of the mid-day meal scheme\u00a0was to increase enrollment. Some areas like Jammu and Kashmir still use eggs and other items as incentives to drive enrollment in schools.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table style=\"width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; background-color: #f7f2f2;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 100%;\"><strong>Also Read<\/strong>: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/midday-meals-leave-a-long-lasting-impact-study\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mid-day meals leave a long-lasting impact<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h5><strong>Suggestions<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Provisioning of milk, eggs and fruits<\/strong> can help provide micro-nutrients for the body.<\/li>\n<li>The calorie and nutritional prescription is based on the nutrient gap that is prevalent in children of different age group. Hence, the <strong>food under MDMS should be seen just as a supplement<\/strong>. It should fill the nutritional gap in the diet of the children, not substitute it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Business Standard Relevance: issues with the Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) Synopsis: Analysis of data shows that India has fewer states now providing egg in mid-day meal schemes, even fewer are provisioning fruits and only a third of the states\/UTs are giving milk to children. Context In June 2021, the Kerala High Court put a&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/what-ails-mid-day-meal-schemes-implementation\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">What ails mid-day meal scheme\u2019s implementation?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,9239,9240,6393,8667],"class_list":["post-127714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-issues-related-with-health-malnutrition","tag-issues-related-with-hunger","tag-mid-day-meal-scheme","tag-welfare-schemes-for-vulnerable-sections","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1703334642},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}