Midday meals in PMC schools only on paper for two months; shoes not issued since beginning of academic year

No shoes, and now no food in their bellies

Midday meals in PMC schools only on paper for two months; shoes not issued since beginning of academic year

IT has been three months since school began, but students across the more than 100 schools run by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) still await school shoes.

Many students have been going barefoot to school as the PMC has not yet provided them footwear. As if this were not enough, for the past two months many of these children have not been given midday meals as well.
In some schools, the khichdi that is supposed to be provided under the one-time meal programme run by the state government has been completely stopped.
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The reason is the agency formed by the state government to oversee distribution of rice to schools for the meal programme has not delivered any rice or grains for the past two months.

"We have been making do with leftover rice and grains from last year in some schools. But in about 100-odd schools we have had to discontinue the midday meal or depend on local help from NGOs and others. The state government has been notified of this situation, but no help has come so far," said an official from PMC education department.

Ramchandra Jadhav, education officer of the PMC, admitted that midday meals had not been given to children in PMC schools.

"Till some time ago rice would be purchased from government shops for the midday meal. But there were some problems in terms of delivery and other problems, and later an agency known as the Maharashtra State Co-Operative Marketing Federation was appointed. However, it has been many weeks since the supply of rice to us has totally stopped," said Jadhav. "Since this is a state government project, we have informed them."
On the delay in supply of shoes, he said that another agency had been appointed by the civic body to supply the shoes and it was expected to deliver these within 10 days.

Sources in the District Collectorate confirmed that the situation was no better in the schools run by it as supply of rice had stopped for several weeks.