the goan I network
PANAJI
A group of around eight women from various registered self-help groups who provide mid-day meals to schools under the Mid-Day Meal Scheme on Thursday alleged that they have not been paid for over four months. The dues owed to them amount to over Rs 3 lakh a month, they claimed.
Unable to provide the meals due to the financial implication, the women approached the Director of Education Vandana Rao IAS at the Directorate of Education, who was not in.
Speaking to the media, one of the women explained that it had become impossible to afford the raw materials to prepare the meals. “The most difficult is the gas cylinder, which is the main thing. We somehow manage the other ingredients, but we cannot put in our own money any longer,” she said.
Another problem being faced by the women is that the teachers refuse to accept the meal if there is a quality problem. But the women say that without money, they are unable to provide quality meals.
Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition Digambar Kamat took to Twitter to strongly condemn the Education Department for not paying the bills of the women self-help groups.
“I demand that Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant should immediately clear all the pending dues of the SHGs towards supply of mid-day meals,” said
Kamat.
“I appreciate the humanitarian gesture of the SHGs which continued supplying the meals without receiving their rightful payments for the last four months. I sympathise with all of them,” he went on to say.
Kamat said that if the pending bills were not paid immediately, he would agitate with all the members of the self-help groups.
He also warned the government not to make any attempts to bring in an outside contractor to supply the meals to the schools in
the State.
