Giving mother's touch to Mid Day Meal

Orvakal, Kurnool, Feb 16 (UNI) There is nothing like mother's touch to the meal given to a child.

Acting firmly on this maxim, Andhra Pradesh has involved mothers in implementing the Mid Day Meal scheme in primary schools, which is part of the mission to universalise elementary education.

The Orvakal mandal of Kurnool district in the state has set an example worth following for all the districts.

Mandal Mahila Samakhya, a federation of self help groups of women in the Mandal has taken upon itself the responsibility of implementing the Mid Day Meal Scheme.

The members of the group are mostly mothers of the children studying in primary schools.

Spending Rs one lakh from the interest on their investment, they have provided cooking utensils to 37 schools in the Manadal.

489 groups in the federations have taken up the responsibility of cooking food for school children on rotational basis.

These women don't care if their bills are delayed. ''After all it is our children who are going to suffer if they don't get fresh and good quality food,'' said one member of the group.

The Self help Groups are also providing loans whenever needed so that the scheme does not suffer.

The village level organisation of these groups also supervises the performance of the teams and the quality of the food being served in the schools.

They also run a cooperative grocery, giving the material on credit if required by a school.

''We wish we could add more items to the school lunch. I think an amount of two ruppees is not sufficient even for the dal and curry we give in addition to the rice which is supplied free,'' said a woman cooking sambhar sitting in front of a smoke billowing chulha in the kitchen of Pudicerla primary school, where her own child was studying.

''We do not find this work boring because we know that our children and those of others of my village are going to eat this food,'' said one of the helper.

Over three and a half lakh children studying in 2509 schools in 54 mandals of the district have so far been covered under the Mid Day Meal scheme.

Under the scheme, a meal of 300 calories and 8-12 gm of protein is being given to child every day.

After involvement of mothers in the programme, a marked improvement has been noticed in the quality of the food served to the children.

While the rice/wheat is provided by the Centre free of cost at the rate of 100 gms per child. It is also giving Rs 1.50 per child as asistance for meeting the cost of preparing meals.

Other expenditures like those on providing kitchen, water supply, utensils and other ingredients are to be borne by the states.

States are expected to add value to the meal by mobilising local resources and adopting innovative means.

Besides aiming to check the rate of dropouts, the scheme works on the premises that malnutrition and undernutrition, widely revalent among the growing children of the country prevent a child from developing into fully functional adult and also result in morbidity and even mortality.

UNI