4 days ago
- General
- New Indian Express
Midday meals in Telangana hit by fund crunch; eggs, veggies vanish from students' plates
HYDERABAD: On paper, students in government schools across the state have a nutritious meal menu. On their plates? Just rice and dal, day after day. Soaring food prices and Rs 2 crore owed to midday meal agencies have quietly pushed eggs, vegetables and sambar off the menu.
Sources said the prescribed day-wise menu — rice with egg and sambar on Mondays and Thursdays, vegetable curry on Tuesdays and Fridays, dal with leafy greens and an egg on Wednesdays and Saturdays — exists only on charts. In reality, students are being served plain rice and dal daily, and eggs once a week.
Pointing to the increasing prices, midday meal agencies said the government hasn't cleared their bills for over three months. 'Vegetables, eggs and pulses have all become expensive. We were told the per-child cost has been revised, but the funds haven't reached us,' said a member of Manna Trust, an NGO supplying meals in Hyderabad.
In March, the Telangana Education Commission proposed a revised budget, hiking the cost per meal from Rs 8.69 to Rs 13.45 for students from classes 1–5, and from Rs 11.79 to Rs 18.60 and Rs 19.14 for classes 6–8 and 9 and 10, respectively. A total of Rs 151 crore was sanctioned. But none of that has trickled down to the field.
'We've stopped asking,' said Sharada, in-charge of the midday meal in Jagtial. 'For the last academic year, we managed with Rs 8.69 per child. We heard the cost was increased, but where's the money? Bills haven't been cleared for months.'
Self-help group workers across districts echo the frustration. In Hyderabad, Jagtial and Sangareddy, school headmasters say they've received no official communication about the revised rates. 'We don't know why the funds haven't been released. Meanwhile, meal workers confront us daily about unpaid dues,' said one headmaster who declined to be named.
