As the centrally-sponsored Mid Day Meal (MDM) Scheme for school-going children has not been implemented in Meghalaya since October last year, the State Government will take up the issue with the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) at a meeting of the Programme Approval Board (PAB) scheduled to be held in New Delhi on May 8, official sources today informed.
The implementation of the MDM was disrupted since October 2008 because the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) did not agree to provide the quota of rice as per the proposal submitted by the State Government last year, the source said, adding that the government will press upon the Central Government to start sanctioning the scheme from this current fiscal year (2009-2010) onwards.
As per the enrolment of students last year, about 6.52 lakh students (LP and EGS - 5.10 lakh and UP- 1.42 lakh) in the State were to benefited from the scheme, but the Central Government rejected the figure stating that it would sanction the scheme only for 2,60,116 (LP and EGS) and 1,39,859 (UP) students.
The Centre through the scheme sanctioned rice for MDM for 10 months, excluding winter holidays (December and January) in each financial year. In 2008-2009 financial year, the State lost the scheme for four months (October 2009 to March 2009 excluding December and January), a government official said adding that the State will urge the Centre to provide the quota of rice as per the work plans submitted by the State to the HRD Ministry recently.
According to the work plans submitted by the State to the HRD Ministry, the students that would benefited from the MDM Scheme in the State include 4,94,000 (LP), 1,39,859 (UP) and 39,000 (EGS).