HM’s under panic: Fine rice for MDM in Telangana

While many may welcome the allocation of fine rice for the government school children for Mid-day Meals (MDM) scheme across Telangana State, there is an unseen panic among the headmasters of schools in Telangana. There are two reasons for this. The first one is lack of security to the rice stocks supplied to schools and the second one is the insufficient quantity of rice allocated per student.

Coming to the security point of view, these rice stocks are supplied to schools once in a month from dealers and the headmasters of the schools are solely responsible for the security of the rice stocks till all the rice is consumed. These rice stocks have to be preserved in schools and if there is no store room, this would be kept in headmaster’s room itself. After school hours there is no security to these stocks and miscreants might break into school and take away the rice. As it is fine rice this time onwards, it would be more tempting for the thieves.

Coming to the quantity point of view, as per government rules each primary class student (1-5 classes) is given 120 grams of rice per meal and 150 gms each for students from 6-10 classes. Earlier a coarse variety of rice used to be supplied to schools for mid-day meals. This quantity isn’t actually enough to satisfy the hunger of pupils nevertheless this coarse variety of rice has the quality of fulfilling hunger easily. This wouldn’t be the case with fine variety of rice. The above said measurements of rice per child, wouldn’t be sufficient to satisfy their hunger. And the headmaster would be at fault if all the children aren’t given enough food to eat under MDM scheme.