Officials yet to iron out local glitches in breakfast scheme

VELLORE: The Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme, which would be extended to all schools across the state from September 15, has many local issues in Vellore district that are yet to be sorted out.

“A top down approach by Chennai-based officials without checking the field realities and lack of application of mind are the main reasons for many of the problems which we are currently facing,” a community organiser attached to the state’s Magalir Thittam seeking anonymity rued.

The scheme envisages appointment of three cooks/staff for each school categorised into those with student strength up to 25, up to 50 and up to 100. Those with less than 10 students will have the breakfast ferried to the school through hot boxes.

However, what irked the staff was that no official informed them how much their emoluments would be. “Fixing Rs 3,000 for 25 students, Rs 4,000 for 50 students and Rs 5,000 for 100 students made the three staff wondering if they would have to share it,” a source said.

The stipulation that they should all have smart phones resulted in problems with the poor women’s husbands demanding to know why they need to spend on phone for such meagre wages.

Similarly, when the staff were asked to upload student attendance on a pilot basis, it resulted in work being done at any time between 11 am and 4 pm, “all because officials did not inform them that attendance had be uploaded immediately after the breakfast,” an organiser said. However, the real area of friction is the continuing clashes between existing noon meal staff and new cooks over resources.

In fact, a school at Kesavapuram near Pennathur bluntly refused to accommodate breakfast staff resulting in the latter demanding that they be given the refusal in writing.

“Such issues could have been prevented if government had roped in the noon meal staff itself for the breakfast scheme,” sources said. Officials too said that the payment has to be shared.