West Bengal School Education Minister Dipak Barman said funds for the mid-day meal programme have reached schools across the state after a delay caused by technical problems on the SNS portal. He said the department had transferred the entire allocation, although isolated cases of payment failure could still occur because of individual school account or other administrative issues.
Speaking at a press conference at Bikash Bhavan on Thursday, Barman said payments had reached all schools over the previous three days. He said the information available to the department indicated that the funds had reached schools in every district. The minister added that one or two schools could still face isolated problems, including issues linked to their bank accounts.
The clarification follows complaints that cooks and helpers working in mid-day meal programmes at several locations had not received payments for several months. Barman said Rs 424 crore allocated for that component had been released. He also said the honorarium for cooks and helpers had been increased from Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000, while the department had released Rs 997 crore in total for the programme.
According to the minister, the delay occurred because of technical problems with the SNS portal through which mid-day meal funds are transferred to schools. He said the problem had subsequently been resolved. The statement did not identify the precise technical fault or specify whether all pending payments to cooks and helpers had already reached their individual accounts.
Barman said school headmasters must immediately inform the department if they face difficulty in running the meal programme. He described this as part of the headmasters’ responsibility and said the department would examine any report it received. He also said schools could use their available funds to run the programme for a month if necessary, adding that suppliers understood that the government would make the payments.
The minister’s comments place responsibility for continuity of the meal service at both the school and departmental levels. While the department says the central transfer to schools has been completed, the possibility of account-level or other local problems means that delivery may still depend on how quickly individual schools and officials report and resolve payment disruptions.
Barman also said the per-child allocation for primary school meals had been increased from Rs 6.78 to Rs 10. He said the earlier amount was difficult to operate within because of market prices and that the increase was intended to ensure that children received sufficient food. He specifically referred to the need to prevent reductions in the quantity of lentils or vegetables served with the meals.
The department has asked schools facing operational difficulties to report them immediately. The next step is the examination of such complaints and the resolution of any remaining account-level or local payment issues, according to the minister.
