Aadhaar for mid day meal criticised -Governance Now

Aadhaar for mid day meal criticised

Right to food campaign has opposed the government’s move to make Aadhaar compulsory for mid day meal scheme

GN Bureau | March 6, 2017

#children #school #HRD ministry #NREGA #mid day meal #Aadhaar #education news

The HRD ministry has declared that children studying in government schools can receive mid day meals only when they provide Aadhaar card numbers. The government has set a deadline of June 30 for enrolling children as well as cooks under the Aadhaar scheme, failing which they would be denied free meals in schools.

The right to food campaign has opposed the government’s move. “This is nothing but an attempt to coerce people to enrol their children under Aadhaar,” it says.

Here is the full statement by the right to food campaign:

School meals are an important entitlement of Indian children, legally enforceable under Supreme Court orders as well as under the National Food Security Act.

Numerous studies show that India's mid day meal scheme has made an important contribution to higher school attendance, better child nutrition and more effective learning. Mid day meals also help to break the barriers of class and caste by imparting to children of diverse backgrounds a habit of sharing meals.

No conditionalities can be imposed on this critical entitlement of Indian children. Making Aadhaar compulsory for the midday meal would serve no purpose, and is bound to disrupt instead of helping this important programme. Further, this move is a violation of Supreme Court orders.

In a series of orders, the Supreme Court has made it clear that Aadhaar cannot be made compulsory for any services to which people are otherwise entitled. It has also made it clear that the Aadhaar Act does not supersede these orders, until such time as the court settles the issue of compatibility of Aadhaar with the right to privacy.

During the last few years, Aadhaar has been made compulsory for a growing list of welfare schemes, under the garb of making them more effective. In fact, this imposition has led to serious disruptions, such as elderly people without Aadhaar being bumped off pension lists,

NREGA workers being denied their wages due to Aadhaar seeding errors and PDS cardholders being deprived of their food rations because of technical glitches with Aadhaar-based biometric authentication. The government has paid no attention to the mounting evidence of these disruptive effects. Reason: the real purpose of this drive is to put pressure on people to enrol with Aadhaar. The need of the hour is to stop this rampage, not to extend it further, least of all to programmes like midday meals that are critical for the wellbeing of Indian children.

The right to food campaign demands immediate withdrawal of the illegal notification seeking to make Aadhaar compulsory for midday meals. It also calls on state governments to desist from implementing this illegal notification.

Comments

Other News

When Jaitley asked me to guess his age...

Sometime in 1999, I took Arun Jaitley out for meal for the column, “Lunch with Business Standard”. As is his wont, he chose his own place for lunch. It was at the Chambers at the Taj Mansingh hotel, an exclusive domain of the high and the mighty Delhi. As we sat down for the meal

Thus ends the Chidamba-Run!

The arrest of Palaniappan Chidambaram, former union minister of home & finance, by the CBI, albeit after his much dramatic disappearance and reappearance, has brought an end to his long run from the arms of law. As a finance minister, being at the other end of the law, the former ministe

What Imran’s rant against RSS tells us about Modi’s Kashmir policy

An unintended consequence of the inversion of Article 370 and the division of the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories is the curious revival of Pakistan’s interest in Indian history and sociology. For the first time in decades, a Pakistan prime minister made the Rasht

On a Personal note with actor Neeraj Kabi

Neeraj Kabi, a critically acclaimed self-taught actor, theatre director, and acting teacher, has worked in Odiya, Hindi and international cinema, theatre, television and web series. In 2014 he was honoured with the best actor award at the 4th Sakhalin International Film Festival for his role in the fil

Talking to Trump, Modi hits out at Imran’s anti-India rhetoric

Prime minister Narendra Modi has told US president Donald Trump that Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan’s “incitement to anti-India violence” was not good for peace in south Asia. Modi and Trump had a telephonic conversation – their first since the Aug 5 move to chang

Paediatricians call for junking unhealthy food

As children are consuming more and more fast foods and sweetened beverages are becoming, leading to obesity and related non-communicable diseases (NCDs), the Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP) has come out with guidelines on such substances. The dietary guidelines under its nutrition chapter

Current Issue

Video

Opinion

Twitter

Tweets by @governancenow