With yet another academic year beginning, the noble, nearly two-decade-old 'mid-day meal' scheme meant to provide nutritious meals to students of Class I to Class VIII in all of Goa's schools has got clouded in a veil of uncertainty. The government has floated a tender at the eleventh hour on Friday calling for an 'expression of interest' from NGOs to shoulder the responsibility of supplying the mid-day meals in schools. Fraught in the past with mismanagement of delivery, mostly linked to the irregular flow of funds from the Directorate of Education (DoE) to the vendors, which are mostly women-run self-help groups and mahila mandals, from across the State, the execution of the scheme continues to face the same pitfalls this year too -- no guarantee that bills will be paid regularly and cash-flow ensured to keep the operations of these SHGs running smoothly. And, in the event the government eventually appoints successful bidders, the transition of the current setup manned by 108 SHGs and some PTAs to the new appointees could potentially smear the delivery of the scheme.
The summer vacations have ended and children are back in their classrooms signalling the start of yet another academic year in schools across Goa. With it has also begun the daily grind of some 100-odd self-help groups and others of cooking fresh meals and delivering them to nearly 1.5-lakh students pursuing their elementary education in classes I to VII under the Centre-State government's mid-day meal scheme in Goan schools.
Will the delivery of this scheme, an operation on a State-wide scale, be seamless or will the same logistics, transportation and erratic flow of cash from the government to the vendors -- SHGs, PTAs and Mahila Mandals -- continue to mar the noble scheme aimed primarily at upping school education standards by improving the nutrition levels of the students?
At the start of the academic year, there's no clarity yet whether the officials in DoE in-charge of implementing and monitoring the delivery of the scheme have indeed plugged the loopholes.
In fact, on June 2 itself, there were ominous signs when the erratic and delayed payments by the DoE to the SHGs came to the fore even before schools could start the new academic year on June 5. There was a hue and cry raised by the representatives of these SHGs who have not been paid their bills for several months in the previous academic year.
Aggregately, the DoE was in arrears to clear almost Rs 13 crore to the 100-plus SHGs from across Goa for meals supplied by them during the last academic year, following which their representatives formally told the department that they will stop the supply on July 1 if the payments are not made by then.
Delay in payments cause
of most past breakdowns
The fulcrum of the machinery that physically delivers the scheme in schools are the self-help groups (SHGs) a collective of a handful of skilled women who generally operate on a hard-cash, day-to-day basis. Over 100 of them are responsible for cooking the meals in their own kitchens and then transporting and delivering the food in schools to nearly 1.5-lakh eligible students.
It's not that they are doing a bad job despite the many challenges they face. With the exception of a handful of them who could do with a dose of improvement in their efficiency, quality of food and delivery, most of these very informal business outfits do an excellent job delivering tasty and liked-by-kids meals in the schools.
However, it is when they are pushed to the wall with their bills unpaid for one, two and sometimes three months at a stretch, that they begin to wilt and simply don't have the funds to buy supplies or pay for transportation of the food to the schools. They are informal operations and business concepts like reserve or contingency funds are not in their dictionary.
It is therefore paramount that the DoE ensures there's no breach in the cash flow to these 'vendors' of the mid-day meal to schools. When erratic cash flows can cripple the delivery of products by even the most well-known FMCG brands, it is unlikely that informal businesses such as the SHGs delivering the mid-day meals in schools will not wilt.
Most if not all of the problems and breakdowns in the implementation of the scheme in the past are attributed to such disruptions in the cash flow reported by these SHGs. The most recent one was when 1,800 students from Canacona went without their mid-day meals in October last year. The SHGs involved had gone bankrupt and just could not deliver the meals as their bills had not been paid by the DoE since June of that year.
Govt opts for overhaul,
floats tender to hire NGOs
Now, the State government has unveiled its intention to overhaul its mid-day meal delivery apparatus. It floated a tender inviting expression of interest from NGOs and CSOs 'working in India' for the supply of freshly hot cooked Mid-Day-Meal to children of pre-primary, primary and upper primary classes of government and aided schools.
To be eligible, CSOs and NGOs must be registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860 or the Public Trust Act and should have been in existence for at least five years which is likely to render most if not all of the SHGs currently shouldering the responsibility ineligible.
The tender conditions also stipulate that freshly cooked food with prescribed nutritional values has to be supplied to the children from existing/proposed centralised kitchens.
The last date for submission of the tender is June 26 at 4.30 pm and the DoE will open them the next day on June 27.
SHGs out, Akshaya Patra
type agencies in?
With the decision to float the tender and the eligibility conditions set in it clearly pointing to the government's intentions to eliminate the existing set of 100-odd SHGs and permit a take-over of the mid-day meal delivery by agencies like 'Akshaya Patra', an intent first exposed back in 2017 during the tenure of the late Manohar Parrikar-led government.
More recently in July last year, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant while relaunching the scheme after the pandemic break and partaking in the meal in a school in his Sanquelim constituency, had expressed the need to bring in the "Akshaya Patra Model" while admonishing the quality of the food supplied.
The SHGs in the past have protested and resisted the government's moves to bring in Akshaya Patra. It is not unlikely they will do it again.
Currently, schools are only in the first week of re-opening for the new academic year.
In many schools, the meals haven't yet begun to arrive on their premises and the move to entirely side-step the existing set of 100-odd SHGs and contractors supplying the mid-day meals with new vendors/NGOs via a tender process has thrown a thick cloud of uncertainty over the entire scheme.
Will the mid-day meals arrive on campuses of schools across Goa? Seems uncertain, unless the education department pulls off the feat of completing the tender process, issuing the work orders and the successful bidders getting into action and delivering. Fingers crossed.
