Mid Day Meals: Students Happy Over Getting Super Fine Variety of Rice
The government is supplying rice, eggs and ragi flour to the cooking agencies as also the essentials like oil, vegetables, gas etc. It pays the agencies at two different rates for the primary to upper primary and high school students.
Kakinada: The TD-led alliance government is providing a super fine variety of rice for the Midday Meal Scheme in the government schools, drawing appreciation from the students as well as their parents.
Previously, a coarse variety of rice was being given for the scheme. The students avoided taking the rice and instead went to their houses and took meals. As a result, the MDM cooking personnel used to cook only half of the students’ quota of rice.
The government is supplying rice, eggs and ragi flour to the cooking agencies as also the essentials like oil, vegetables, gas etc. It pays the agencies at two different rates for the primary to upper primary and high school students.
Officials say that after introducing a super fine variety of rice, the students are consuming the food with “complete satisfaction.”
The cooking agencies are worried over the prices and said they are incurring losses. They requested the government to increase their commission at `20 per head and provide them with more cooking materials.
Sahapuram zilla parishad high school parents’ committee president Yalla Lakshmi Durga said that after supplying the super fine variety of rice for the MDM, the students are consuming the food with satisfaction. They stopped going to their houses for meals in the afternoon.
Meanwhile, the AP Midday Meal workers’ association state general secretary Daya Ramadevi told the Deccan Chronicle that the workers were facing a lot of difficulties. She said that 85,000 workers were serving the midday meal to nearly 44 lakh students in the
state. “But the government is not taking care of the cooking workers.”
She said that one worker, M Rama of Srikakulam district, suffered burn injuries while cooking the food. After four days of
struggle with her life, she died. The government did not even pay the burial expenses to her family members. A woman of Tadipatri village in Anantapur district lost the sight to her one eye when she was cooking the food.
Ramadevi said the government should provide health insurance, fix a minimum salary of `10,000 per worker, build cooking sheds, supply drinking water, gloves, apron etc for the safety of the students and the cooking workers.
The government is not paying the monthly remuneration to the MDM workers regularly every month. They are receiving their payments once in four or five months, it was stated.
