Calorific/Protein Value
In keeping with the National priorities the Mid Day Meal Programme in the State does not merely aim to provide cooked meal, but one with satisfying and prescribed nutritional norms. The nutritional norm that is being followed in the State consists of a minimum of 450 calories and 8-12 grams of proteins. Necessary instructions have been issued for providing cooked meals with required calories and proteins, preferably locally available vegetable including fruits, bananas and honey. A list of suggestive menu have been prepared with the help of the Central Nutrition Board and circulated to the Districts.

Monitoring Mechanism
Comprehensive monitoring of the scheme was taken up by the inspecting staff including personnel from the Elementary & Mass Education Department and also SSA functionaries like BMC, BRP and CRP.Steering and Monitoring Committees have also been set up at the State, District and Block levels. At the District levels regular meetings are conducted by the Deputy Commissioners t  nnaqx o monitor the scheme.

Arrangement for departmental inspections.
Mid Day Meal Scheme inspection is done simultaneously with normal school inspection by the Deputy Inspectors, Sub Inspectors, SEO, LSEO, BMC, BRP and CRP. During school inspections, the inspecting staff has been instructed to specially look into aspects of implementation of MDM Scheme like quality of cooked meals given to the children and tasting of food by the teachers. In every quarter almost 25% of schools are inspected but compilation and submission of reports had not been quite satisfactory due to lack of equipment and manpower at the Sub-Divisional level. Despite these limitations, the State Government is trying to improve the situation.

System for cooking, serving and supervising Mid Day Meals in the School
Instructions have been issued to the School Managing Committees to make necessary arrangement for appointment of Cooks by utilizing the amount earmarked under labour in the break-up of conversion cost. In many places Mother’s Union, NGOs and SHGs are actively involved for cooking and serving of Mid Day Meal in schools. Supervision works have been entrusted to the Deputy Inspector of Schools and his inspecting staff as well as to touring District Officers of other Departments. Further the work of supervision is also vested on the Block Mission Coordinators, Cluster Resource Centres and Village Education Committees.

The State had held consultative meetings with the Nutrition Board and worked out standard Menus for Mid Day Meals in Schools. These were suggestive menus and printed on the inside front cover of the exercise books distributed to the LP School children.

Status of construction of kitchen sheds.
Rs. 1523.40 Lakhs has been received from Mid Day Meals Scheme towards the fag end of 2006-07 for construction of Kitchen Sheds. This amount is being utilized in 2007-08. No fund was received from any other development programmes like SGRY, BRGF etc during 2007-08. It is suggested that construction of kitchen sheds should be taken up by MHRD with the Ministry of Rural Development for inclusion in the list of permissible works in Chapter 5 of the Operational Guidelines of NREGA, 2005

Status of procurement of kitchen devices.
The fund for procurement of kitchen devices is released from the State to the Deputy Inspector of Schools who in turn will release the same to the School Managing Committees for procurement of kitchen-devices. The list of materials to be procured by each school is also prepared at the State level.

Systems to ensure transparency and openness.
In order to ensure that quality meals are served to all the eligible children, the active participation of the School Managing Committees in general and Mothers’ Unions, NGOs, SHGs, in particular has been obtained by and large. Transparency is maintained in foodgrains management, ingredients procurement, cooking and serving, appointment of cooking staff, procurement of cooking devices etc. through periodic dissemination of information on the scheme in newspapers, journals especially on special occasions apart from the fact that the menu is printed on the inside cover page of exercise books.

Status of School Health Programme.
The matter of administering of micronutrients like Iron, Folic Acid and Vitamins and other appropriate supplements along with 6 monthly doses of de-worming tablets to the children has been taken up with the health department. Simultaneously school health programme is also being conducted in schools. There was no mechanism of health checks in the past. However, recently a meeting between Education Department and Health Department was convened during which it was agreed that health checks would start from the beginning of the year 2008 school session. To begin with, the health department will be conducting health checks in 308 schools falling under 28 Community Health Centres. The programme is expected to extend to many more schools in the near future. 1579 schools are being provided with weighing machines.

Measures Taken to Rectify.

(a) Inter-district low and uneven utilization of food grains and cooking cost.

There has been a disparity of allocation of foodgrain to the three Districts of the State namely, Jaintia Hills, West Khasi Hills and Ri Bhoi. The matter has been taken up with the Ministry of Human Resource & Development, Government of India and the same has been duly rectified albeit after quite a few months.

(b) Intra-district mismatch in utilization of food grains and cooking cost.

No such instances have been detected so far.

(c) Delay in delivering cooking cost at school level.

During review meetings it was learned that some Deputy Commissioners had taken more time than normally required to release funds to the Deputy Inspectors of Schools and the latter had also erred in a similar way in the matter of releasing funds to the schools under their jurisdictions. Fresh instructions were issued that not more than 15 days should be taken to release funds from the Deputy Commissioners to the Deputy Inspectors and from the Deputy Inspectors to the Schools. In order to expedite fund release from the Deputy Inspectors to the schools, Deputy Inspectors were advised to hold a public function in the Sub-Divisional Head Quarters during which cheques should be distributed and receipts obtained.