So, why do NGOs lobby hard for mid-day meal contracts?
26 Oct 2012 5:54 AM IST
[Millennium Post Investigation]
Mid-Day Meal Scam: Part- V
Read Part-I, Part-II, Part-III, Part-IV, Part-VI & Part-VII
The NGOs supplying mid-day meal to primary school students of MCD claim that they incur heavy losses, but always make a beeline and even do hectic lobbying to get their files moving and get maximum students allocated to their kitchens. This obviously raises the question of why. A close scrutiny of the proceedings of the allocation of the three-year mid-day meal contract in 2011-12 reveals that several rules were compromised – from short listing to final allocation of students – to benefit certain NGOs who are working with MCD since 2003.
Not even a single new NGO was engaged in the current allocation of over 10 lakh students of the three municipal corporations.
‘The officers put on hold the file of allocation of MDM to NGOs for over five months and hastily started the process when the elections of the MCD were announced. The Kitchen Inspection Committee started visiting the kitchens of the NGOs on the sixth day of announcement of the election for tri-furcated MCD. Their is connivance of officers, leaders and lobbyists at every level,’ said Mukesh Goel, Leader of Opposition in North Delhi Municipal Corporation [NDMC].
Goel, a senior congress leader and former chairperson of Standing Committee of MCD, raised the issue in the house meeting of the newly created NDMC and demanded the mayor to restart the procedure afresh.
As the records of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) tenders of the NGOs for allocation of MDM for students of MCD primary schools were opened on 25 August 2011 and a five member committee headed by Director of Education was constituted to verify their documents and shortlist the kitchens for inspection. But the first meeting of the committee was held on 6 February 2012, when the election bound MCD was going through hectic process of tri-furcation. The election dates of the tri-furcated MCD was announed on 1 March 2012. The kitchens were visited on 6, 7 and 9 March 2012 and all the decisions were taken before the poll was held on 15 April.
Further, during the kitchen visit, the senior most officer of the team, Kanta Kumar, Director, Education of MCD, was critically ill and could not visit the kitchens. She also passed away in March and the two other senior officers of the team S Bala and R K S Gaur retired in March. ‘The retired officers were summoned from their homes in April to sign on the final report after their retirement,’ Goel said.
In February 2012, a seven-member Kitchen Inspection Committee was constituted to visit the 17 kitchens of various NGOs. The committee was headed by Kanta Kumar, who was just an acting director without any power. ‘All the administrative and financial powers of the director were vested with Additional Commissioner (Education) Deepak Hastir. Kanta Kumar was merely dealing with postal communications of the department,’ said a senior officer on the condition of annonumity.
Further, she fell ill in the first week of February and could not attened even a single meeting of the committee and died before the final report came. S Bala, Additional Director (Education)-I and R K S Rathors, Additional Director (Education)-II, retired in March: they visited the kitchens, but reportedly were called to sign on the final report in the first week of April after their retirement.
N K Ghai, Deputy Director (Education) and incharge of the MDM in MCD was the only officer – but the junior most among the four officers of the department appointment for the committee. Arun Kumar, Deputy MHO and Bhupender Singh, Assistant Engineer were also in the team. Salila Thomas, Associate Professor, Lady Irwin College was appointed as expert in the field of nutrition. In a reply to our email she replied, ‘I do not want to be part of any controversy.’
The preamble for the project that was prepared on the basis of the report of the committee received the approval of new commissioner of NDMC on 26 June 2012.
The second stage of lobbying started after the preamble of the MDM project was first presented before Standing Committee of NDMC for approval on 11 July 2012. The premble states, ‘It is recommended that the kitchens, which have been selected for providing cooked food, should be confined to serve cooked food in the schools of the respective zones under the jurisdication of a particular Corporation only and there should not be overlapping.’
However, in the same document the kitchen of Stri Shakti in Ranhola, which fall in SDMC area, was allocated 1,03,500 students of NDMC area. Further, the number of students in the kitchen of Stri Shakti at Alipur, which was graded as fair, were increased from 75,000 to 77,000.
The members of the Standing Committee objected the recommendations and demanded expulsion of Ranhola kitchen and wanted to decrease the allocation for Alipur kitchen. In the meeting, the Chairman of the Standing committee, Yogender Chandolia, ordered the accommodation of these two demands and invited fresh applications from willing NGOs to supply MDM for remaining students. As per the contract, the NGOs are allowed to continue supplying MDM till the new allocation so that the MDM scheme would not be hindered.
The project was post-poned for three to four times in the meeting of the standing committee and each time, on the direction of chairman, the officers assured to change it but always presented the same document before the committee.
According to sources, the lobbyists held several meetings with leaders of both the parties concerned to convince them to pass the project as usual. On 12 September 2012, the Standing Committee passed the project as usual with the declaration of the Chairman that the changes are not possible and that Ranhola kitchen of the Stri Shakti will not be considered in future as it is not situated in NDMC area.
Meanwhile, the project was put before East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) on 12 July. A day before the meeting, when the mayor of EDMC, Annapurna Mishra, inspected a MCD primary school in Krishna Nagar the food served was found to be of very low quality. She wrote letters to all the members of the standing committee of both Congress and BJP, requesting them not to pass the project.
‘I found that only 60-70 students (28 per cent of enrollment) were present in the school but the NGO is charging for 250 students, further the quality of food is sub-standard,’ said the mayor. She also ordered the officers to make some alternative arrangments for MDM till the report of the chemical analysis of the food samples comes from the designated laboratory.
As issue created quite a furore in the meeting, the case was post-poned and a committee of four members, including Leader of Opposition Varyam Kaur, Deputy Chairman of the Standing Committee Lata Gupta, and members Sanjay Kaushik and Manoj Tyagi, was to inspect the three kitchens of the NGOs in its area.
The committee visited two of the three kitchens and submitted its report recommending installation of exhaust and other measures to maintain the proper hygiene of the kitchens. But the committee had not said anything about the quality of food the main concern of mayor. Subsequently, the project was passed in the next meeting of Standing Committee. ‘So far we have not received the copy of test report of food samples sent for chemical analysis,’ said personal secretary of mayor at 7.52 pm on Thursday.
The officers of SDMC are in wait and watch position and put it for approval of the standing committee only after it was passed in NDMC. The SDMC passed the project on 25 September.
Mid-Day Meal Scam: Part- V
Read Part-I, Part-II, Part-III, Part-IV, Part-VI & Part-VII
The NGOs supplying mid-day meal to primary school students of MCD claim that they incur heavy losses, but always make a beeline and even do hectic lobbying to get their files moving and get maximum students allocated to their kitchens. This obviously raises the question of why. A close scrutiny of the proceedings of the allocation of the three-year mid-day meal contract in 2011-12 reveals that several rules were compromised – from short listing to final allocation of students – to benefit certain NGOs who are working with MCD since 2003.
Not even a single new NGO was engaged in the current allocation of over 10 lakh students of the three municipal corporations.
‘The officers put on hold the file of allocation of MDM to NGOs for over five months and hastily started the process when the elections of the MCD were announced. The Kitchen Inspection Committee started visiting the kitchens of the NGOs on the sixth day of announcement of the election for tri-furcated MCD. Their is connivance of officers, leaders and lobbyists at every level,’ said Mukesh Goel, Leader of Opposition in North Delhi Municipal Corporation [NDMC].
Goel, a senior congress leader and former chairperson of Standing Committee of MCD, raised the issue in the house meeting of the newly created NDMC and demanded the mayor to restart the procedure afresh.
As the records of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) tenders of the NGOs for allocation of MDM for students of MCD primary schools were opened on 25 August 2011 and a five member committee headed by Director of Education was constituted to verify their documents and shortlist the kitchens for inspection. But the first meeting of the committee was held on 6 February 2012, when the election bound MCD was going through hectic process of tri-furcation. The election dates of the tri-furcated MCD was announed on 1 March 2012. The kitchens were visited on 6, 7 and 9 March 2012 and all the decisions were taken before the poll was held on 15 April.
Further, during the kitchen visit, the senior most officer of the team, Kanta Kumar, Director, Education of MCD, was critically ill and could not visit the kitchens. She also passed away in March and the two other senior officers of the team S Bala and R K S Gaur retired in March. ‘The retired officers were summoned from their homes in April to sign on the final report after their retirement,’ Goel said.
In February 2012, a seven-member Kitchen Inspection Committee was constituted to visit the 17 kitchens of various NGOs. The committee was headed by Kanta Kumar, who was just an acting director without any power. ‘All the administrative and financial powers of the director were vested with Additional Commissioner (Education) Deepak Hastir. Kanta Kumar was merely dealing with postal communications of the department,’ said a senior officer on the condition of annonumity.
Further, she fell ill in the first week of February and could not attened even a single meeting of the committee and died before the final report came. S Bala, Additional Director (Education)-I and R K S Rathors, Additional Director (Education)-II, retired in March: they visited the kitchens, but reportedly were called to sign on the final report in the first week of April after their retirement.
N K Ghai, Deputy Director (Education) and incharge of the MDM in MCD was the only officer – but the junior most among the four officers of the department appointment for the committee. Arun Kumar, Deputy MHO and Bhupender Singh, Assistant Engineer were also in the team. Salila Thomas, Associate Professor, Lady Irwin College was appointed as expert in the field of nutrition. In a reply to our email she replied, ‘I do not want to be part of any controversy.’
The preamble for the project that was prepared on the basis of the report of the committee received the approval of new commissioner of NDMC on 26 June 2012.
The second stage of lobbying started after the preamble of the MDM project was first presented before Standing Committee of NDMC for approval on 11 July 2012. The premble states, ‘It is recommended that the kitchens, which have been selected for providing cooked food, should be confined to serve cooked food in the schools of the respective zones under the jurisdication of a particular Corporation only and there should not be overlapping.’
However, in the same document the kitchen of Stri Shakti in Ranhola, which fall in SDMC area, was allocated 1,03,500 students of NDMC area. Further, the number of students in the kitchen of Stri Shakti at Alipur, which was graded as fair, were increased from 75,000 to 77,000.
The members of the Standing Committee objected the recommendations and demanded expulsion of Ranhola kitchen and wanted to decrease the allocation for Alipur kitchen. In the meeting, the Chairman of the Standing committee, Yogender Chandolia, ordered the accommodation of these two demands and invited fresh applications from willing NGOs to supply MDM for remaining students. As per the contract, the NGOs are allowed to continue supplying MDM till the new allocation so that the MDM scheme would not be hindered.
The project was post-poned for three to four times in the meeting of the standing committee and each time, on the direction of chairman, the officers assured to change it but always presented the same document before the committee.
According to sources, the lobbyists held several meetings with leaders of both the parties concerned to convince them to pass the project as usual. On 12 September 2012, the Standing Committee passed the project as usual with the declaration of the Chairman that the changes are not possible and that Ranhola kitchen of the Stri Shakti will not be considered in future as it is not situated in NDMC area.
Meanwhile, the project was put before East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) on 12 July. A day before the meeting, when the mayor of EDMC, Annapurna Mishra, inspected a MCD primary school in Krishna Nagar the food served was found to be of very low quality. She wrote letters to all the members of the standing committee of both Congress and BJP, requesting them not to pass the project.
‘I found that only 60-70 students (28 per cent of enrollment) were present in the school but the NGO is charging for 250 students, further the quality of food is sub-standard,’ said the mayor. She also ordered the officers to make some alternative arrangments for MDM till the report of the chemical analysis of the food samples comes from the designated laboratory.
As issue created quite a furore in the meeting, the case was post-poned and a committee of four members, including Leader of Opposition Varyam Kaur, Deputy Chairman of the Standing Committee Lata Gupta, and members Sanjay Kaushik and Manoj Tyagi, was to inspect the three kitchens of the NGOs in its area.
The committee visited two of the three kitchens and submitted its report recommending installation of exhaust and other measures to maintain the proper hygiene of the kitchens. But the committee had not said anything about the quality of food the main concern of mayor. Subsequently, the project was passed in the next meeting of Standing Committee. ‘So far we have not received the copy of test report of food samples sent for chemical analysis,’ said personal secretary of mayor at 7.52 pm on Thursday.
The officers of SDMC are in wait and watch position and put it for approval of the standing committee only after it was passed in NDMC. The SDMC passed the project on 25 September.
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