Another Scam Surfaces In Bengal, This One Involving Meals For Schoolchildren

Yet another scam — this one involving mid-day meals for schoolchildren — has surfaced in Bengal. 

A joint inspection by officials of the Union and Bengal governments has revealed that over 16 crore mid-day meals worth Rs 100 crore was over-reported in Bengal in a six-month period from April to September 2022. 

A joint review mission (JRM) comprising senior officers of the Union Ministry of Education and the project director of the cooked mid-day meal scheme (CMDM) — he is a state government officer —  went to many schools across Bengal in the last week of January and the first week of February this year. 

The JRM reported “serious discrepancies in information submitted regarding the meals served at various levels”. This, in effect, means that the number of meals served to schoolchildren had been inflated and the extra funds syphoned off. 

The JRM found that the state government had reported to the Union government that 140.2 crore meals were served under the Pradhan Mantri POshan SHAkti Nirman (PM-POSHAN) scheme —  the Union government’s mid-day meal scheme — to schoolchildren between April and September 2022. 

However, as per the quarterly progress reports for the first two quarters of the 2022-2023 financial year (April to June 2022 and July to September 2022) submitted by district education authorities to the Bengal government, the number of meals served to schoolchildren was 124.2 crore. 

The JRM report concluded: “Thus, there is an over-reporting of over 16 crore meals. The corresponding material cost works out to Rs 100 crore”. 

The JRM also detected other serious discrepancies, including diversion of PM-POSHAN funds to pay compensation to victims of a blaze, misallocation of foodgrains, use of packets of condiments whose ‘use-by’ dates had expired and cooking of rice, dal and vegetables up to 70 per cent  less than the prescribed quantities. 

Officers of the Union Ministry of Education who have studied the JRM report told Swarajya that schools in most districts of Bengal routinely cook much less than the prescribed quantity of rice, dal and vegetables for their students.

This means while the students are undernourished, the school authorities pocket the money they save by not purchasing the prescribed quantities of rice, lentils and vegetables. 

The officers said that this has become endemic in Bengal and even independent audits have reported gross anomalies in the PM-POSHAN scheme in Bengal. 

But school authorities alone cannot be blamed for this. It is the school management committees who are primarily responsible for this racket. And it is no surprise that almost all these committees across Bengal are manned by Trinamool functionaries. 

The Bengal government has objected to the JRM report since it was not shared with the state’s representative in the JRM — the CMDM project director. 

Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu said that the CMDM project director was not informed about the report and even his signature was not taken. 

“The JRM is integral to any jointly-sponsored scheme of the Centre and the state government and has representatives from both. The CMDM project director was the state government representative in the JRM. But they have submitted the report even without informing the project director, leave alone getting his signature,” the Education Minister said. 

Terming this a “serious violation of Centre-state relations”, Basu said that the CMDM project director has written to the JRM chairperson about being kept in the dark.

The state government, said the Education Minister, will decide on the “next course of action” after receiving the JRM chairperson’s report. 

But Union Ministry of Education officers said that the Bengal government official was kept out of the loop deliberately since the final report is a stinging indictment of the state government. 

“Past experience has shown that the state representative would have tried to obfuscate the report and delay its release by raising frivolous objections. The state government is the guilty party in this case and its concurrence is not required at all,” a senior official told Swarajya. 

The Union Ministry of Education is mulling follow-up action, which can come in the form of a complete audit of the PM-POSHAN scheme’s implementation in Bengal. 

Senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari has been flagging anomalies in the PM-POSHAN scheme in Bengal. 

He has been alleging that funds meant for the scheme were being routinely diverted to pay for the Chief Minister’s trips to various districts of the state (see this tweet), hand out ex-gratia to victims of the Bogtui carnage (see this tweet) and other purposes.

Adhikari also alleged that the state government was siphoning off funds meant for the nutrition of schoolchildren. 

Adhikari wrote to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in January this year alleging largescale diversion and misappropriation of funds for the PM-POSHAN scheme and urged Pradhan to depute a team to carry out a detailed audit. 

Mid-day meals in Bengal have been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Dead rats, snakes and cockroaches have been found in the meals served to schoolchildren. Many allegations regarding serving stale or low-quality meals, or small portions much short of the prescribed quantities have been levelled. 

Adhikari told Swarajya that despite the state government’s efforts to “whitewash its sins” by taking the central inspection team to select schools, the truth could not be concealed.

“What has been revealed in the JRM report is just the tip of the iceberg. Now a detailed probe by the central agency needs to be carried out,” he said. 

The mid-day meal scam, the latest in a long list of frauds and rackets that have brought Bengal to shame, will cause more embarrassment to the Mamata Banerjee government in Bengal.