TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: There has been a major hiccup in the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme with the education department facing an acute shortage of Self Help Groups to implement the scheme in major towns.
According to department of education officials, this new found problem has cropped up in the talukas of Tiswadi and Salcete which caters to a large number of city based schools in Panjim and Margao.
Reports suggest that there are no SHGs ready to supply MDMS to schools in Margao and Panjim. “Most of the Self Help Groups which have applied for the task of supplying the mid-day meals are in villages,” Education Director Anil Powar said.
The education department had recently sought fresh applications from SHGs interested in assisting with the MDMS. The department approved a list of 146 groups. In the process, it has discovered that are no SHGs to supply meals in Salcete and Tiswadi taluka in particular and not enough in other towns in the State as well.
“We will have to manage with the number of SHGs who have applied and been approved by the government,” Powar said .
He said that the government plan was to have more groups so as to reduce the proximity and have smaller clusters to facilitate supply of meals in a safe manner with added focus on nutritional value.
Powar said that 200 SHGs would have been an ideal number of groups to facilitate and implement the MDMS in an effective manner. Earlier, as many as 186 SHGs were supplying meals.
When asked about the situation that there is a lesser number of groups now and no groups to help in many places, Powar said the department will take steps to ensure that the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme is not hampered.
The education department is designing a plan to slot schools per SHG based on the proximity of the supplier’s kitchen so that there is no delay in supply of food to the schools in the locality after the meals are prepared.
So far the ADEIs who were entrusted with the task of collecting data on the consumption vis-à-vis wastage have not yet submitted their reports.
For primary-level students the meal should comprise 450 calories and 12 gm proteins and for upper primary it should be 750 calories and 20 gm proteins. Presently, the government provides three items of food to students ~pav bhaji, shira and pulao~ as mid-day meals from which students prefer pav bhaji the most.
The mid-day meal scheme was started in Goa in 2005 and presently caters to around 1,64,000 students. These meals are cooked by around 82 self-help groups who supply them to the schools during the break time. The Education Department provides one helper per 50 students to serve these meals.
The Department hopes to streamline the scheme in collaboration with Goa Education Development Corporation. In addition to the 82 self-help groups supplying mid-day meals to the schools, additional 59 groups have registered for supplying the meals which takes the total number to 141.
These groups will be divided on taluka-level after which every group will be able to supply meals to not more than 700 to 800 students.
Three cases of alleged mid-day meal poisoning were reported in the state, this year. On 27th June 86 students of Mallikarjun High School in Canacona had fallen ill after consuming mid-day meal. They were rushed to the nearby health centre after they complained of abdominal pain and vomiting. Some of these students complained of seeing some insects in the vegetable dish served to them. The food served — usually with bread – was suspected to be the source of the food poisoning. Following the incident, the services of the self-help group which supplied the meals to the school, were suspended.
The second case was when 19 students of Pernem-based Kamleshwar High School were admitted to Tuem primary health centre after they complained of vomiting after consuming the mid-day meal. Students had said they found a spider in the bhaji. In another case, on 19th July, 23 students of St Joseph’s High School in Usgao were admitted to the sub-district hospital after they complained of stomach pain after consuming mid-day meals served to them.
