Meal scheme not to be scrapped

GANDHINAGAR, APRIL 29: Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel on Wednesday clarified that the government had not initiated any move to scrap the amb...

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GANDHINAGAR, APRIL 29: Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel on Wednesday clarified that the government had not initiated any move to scrap the ambitious mid-day meal (MDM) scheme under which cooked food is being provided to students studying in primary schools in the state.

In his weekly press briefing, the chief minister said, “No government resolution has been issued to scrap the MDM scheme, and hence the hue and cry being raised by Congress leaders on the issue is misplaced.” Patel also said he was not aware of Minister of State for Education Anandiben Patel having issued a statement advocating for scrapping the scheme.

The chief minister offered the same clarification to a delegation of Congress leaders led by former MLA Surendra Rajput when they met him earlier in his official chamber in the Sachivalaya. “I am not aware of the statement by the education minister, but it is only up to the government to take a decision, whatsoever, on such a contentious issue,” Patel was reported to have told the Congress delegation.

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The Congress leaders met the chief minister after leading a rally of mid-day meal scheme workers in Gandhinagar on Wednesday afternoon. The protest rally was organised in the wake of a section of the press having quoted the education minister as saying that the government was contemplating scrapping the scheme and instead providing 10 kgs of food grains per child per month to the parents of primary-school children.

The minister’s reported statement had recently prompted some senior Congress leaders, including C D Patel, Amarsinh Chaudhary and Madhavsinh Solanki, to issue statements denouncing the government’s reported move to do away with the scheme, introduced during Madhavsinh Solanki’s tenure as chief minister in 1984.

Solanki had even described the government’s move as “anti-poor and impractical”, saying that it would not only render jobless over 70,000 workers attached to the MDM scheme, but would also deprive lakhs of poor and backward class primary students of meals.