Jharkhand: Education office to deliver MDM rice to schools

RANCHI: Under the “doorstep delivery” initiative, the district education offices will deliver the ration for the mid-day meal (MDM) scheme to schools across the state, beginning in the New Year to relieve teachers from non-academic work.
Earlier, the Sanchalan Samiti and the teachers were responsible for collecting their quota of the ration (rice) from their respective block offices every quarter.
Speaking about the initiative, district education officer Akash Kumar said, “We have begun the initiative of delivering ration, specifically the rice for the mid-day meal, after a successful pilot project in the Mandar block. So, the education department has decided to implement it across all districts. The initiative will come into effect from next year.”
The district superintendent of education of Ranchi has issued a letter in this regard and instructed the schools to submit hard copies and excel sheet information of the school’s enrolment, the name of the block and the school, and the distance between the block and the block education office (BEO).
Kameshwar Singh, the district nodal officer of MDM said: “The process of the door-step delivery will simplify the work for teachers. Through this initiative, they will receive some relief from non-teaching duties and the rice will be delivered to schools’ doorstep beginning the next quarter. The blocks will be responsible for delivering the rice. The schools have been asked to provide the distance from their building to the BEO which will compile the data for the process of doorstep delivery.” Meanwhile, the teachers said they are not satisfied with the initiative, saying it is not going to effectively alleviate their burden.
Betual Sudharm, the principal of the Government Middle School, Kantatoli, stated, “The rice collection for MDM was not as burdensome as the data entry work we have to do. If the department of education wishes to reduce our workload, it should appoint a data entry person in each school so that teachers have time to teach.”