This year in Maharashtra, the state government has declared more than 75 percent of the areas as drought-hit.
A central team is inspecting the drought-affected areas. In villages, students are relying mainly on the midday meal. But the government has been delaying the release of the funds needed for it.
For the past four months, since the start of the academic year, in government schools across Maharashtra, teachers and headmasters have been paying out of their own pockets to keep the midday meal scheme running.
Schools have been affected due to delays in the release of funds under the Prime Minister’s Poshan scheme, which provides financial support for meals. A headmaster working at a school in Beed district said about this, ''Food grains and pulses are arriving.
But since June 15, school headmasters have been paying for cooking fuel and vegetables. Drought has forced households to cut back on food choices.
Most of our children at home eat only lentils and onions with corn bread. So this one school meal is the only source of good nutrition they are getting now. If I do not pay for the food items, the children will stop coming to school. But this is bad for our cooks. Due to delays in funding, they have not been paid,” he said.
Regarding this, district council school teacher Bhausaheb Saskar from Ahilyanagar said, ''The midday meal is one of the country's most important welfare schemes. Evidence shows that it has increased school enrollment. But the government’s handling of this scheme is very poor.
School headmasters do not complain about this because officials threaten them by citing court action. The responsibility for continuing to implement the scheme is largely pushed onto us," he said.
Regarding this, Warda headmaster Vijay Gombe said, ''Is 2.59 rupees each for students from 1st to 5th standard and 3.71 rupees each for students studying from 6th to 8th standard enough for vegetables and fuel? For 125 students, I spend 3,000 rupees a month to buy fuel,'' he said.
Another school teacher, speaking about this, said, "It is ridiculous to expect teachers to buy extra apples and bananas out of the meager funds provided by the government. Once, someone suggested dried fruits. Who sells dried fruits for 2 rupees? A school gets one LPG cylinder a month.
Once that is used up, the headmaster has to arrange firewood," he said.
Speaking about this, Ashok Thorat, the national secretary of the Indian Mid-Day Meal Workers Federation, said, ''Many protests have been held to draw attention to these issues. There are 158,000 mid-day meal workers in the state. Of them, 70% are women. The government has blamed the delay on new software.
But how is it that only officials get paid on time? Even when wages are delayed, the workers continue to work. They are afraid they will lose this job. Imagine workers employed in the mid-day meal scheme, one of the country’s most important welfare programs, working without pay for four months'' he said