The mid-day meal scheme for primary schools has run into trouble with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) threatening to stop supplies unless the Human Resource Development Ministry pays up its arrears amounting to Rs 500 crore. The HRD Ministry says it has ‘‘no money to pay’’ and there is already a budgetary shortfall of Rs 11 crore in the department of primary and elementary education which has to implement the enormous Right to Education Bill. ‘‘We had a meeting with the FCI officials where we asked for more time. It is between two government departments and they have to understand our problem — we have no money to pay,’’ an HRD Ministry official said. The HRD Ministry is caught in a bind, particularly because the Supreme Court in a recent judgment told both the Centre and all the state governments that there could be ‘‘no compromise on school meals’’ on the grounds of financial constraints. At the emergency meeting with the FCI, sources in the Food Ministry said the officials of the Department of Elementary Education and Literacy had asked for time to organise funds from other heads for their mid-day meal scheme. ‘‘But we cannot allow the FCI to become a state electricity board with huge pending arrears,’’ a senior FCI official said. On the other side, the HRD Ministry complained that the FCI was kicking up a big fuss because some of the state governments, like Bihar and Orissa, have not given them verification certificates for stocks supplied (to them) for a year. ‘‘It’s a problem for the Food Corporation of India and it’s a problem for us. But we are trying to sort it out,’’ Secretary, Elementary Education and Literacy, S C Tripathy said. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) has been releasing stock on a quota of 100 gms wheat or rice per student daily for cooked meals and 3 kg per student each month for pre-cooked meals. ‘‘The allocation was made on the basis of last year’s enrollment figures till Class V which roughly comes to 10 crore students,’’ Tripathy said. TheFood Corporation of India supplies around 2482 tonnes of stock every month which go to 8.4 lakh schools in 6,809 blocks in 590 districts across the country. Despite this cash crunch, Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi has been sitting on an offer from the World Bank for participation in the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan or the Government’s universalisation of education programme on the ground that he does not want ‘‘any loan with strings attached’’.
