Opinion - News Analysis   

Egg on whose face?

Bageshree S.

Does anyone have the right to block the proposal to include eggs in the mid-day meal scheme for school children in Karnataka?

WHO IN Karnataka decides what the 58 lakh children covered under the mid-day meal scheme, Akshra dasoha, will or will not have on their plates? Neither the children themselves,nor their parents, nor the elected representatives, nor the bureaucracy, but the heads of religious institutions in the State. Bowing to pressure from Hindu and Jain religious leaders and the Bharatiya Janata Party, a partner in his government, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy has put on hold the proposal to give eggs once a week to children under the scheme. He made the announcement at a religious institution in Mysore.

Last week, the Chief Minister had said his government was committed to giving eggs to children. Preparations for this have been on since last month. On December 12, 2006, directions had been sent to all the Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officers to prepare to implement the scheme; tenders to supply eggs too had been called for. The scheme had even taken off in some districts.

Then came a series of protests by heads of various religious organisations on the ground that it would lead to segregation of students as vegetarians and non-vegetarians. As many people in the country were vegetarians, it was not wise on the part of the Government to thrust its decision to distribute eggs on children, they said. Instead, the Government should distribute satvik food such as milk and fruit.

Interestingly, the Government had never proposed to "thrust" eggs on school children. According to the Minister for Primary Education Basavaraj Horatti, the department had conducted a survey and found that over 50 lakh children wanted eggs in their meal, while the rest preferred bananas. The proposal was to serve either of the two meal supplements. Whose democratic rights is the Government protecting by summarily banning eggs from the mi-day meal scheme?

An even more important question concerns children's nutrition. There has been serious concern over the falling per capita calorie intake in the country, with over 44 per cent of households, especially women and children, suffering from malnutrition.

According to a World Bank report in May 2006, the prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world, and is nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa. India's Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) needs to undergo significant changes to address the current malnutrition crisis in India, it said.

The principal aim of the mid-day meal is to improve child nutrition, followed by promoting school attendance, and fostering social equity. So, clearly, the children need nutritional additives besides the staple rice and dhal. An egg is perhaps the cheapest nutritious food that can be conveniently given to school children without fear of adulteration or contamination.

Though commonsense is in favour of introducing eggs in the diet of children, support for the scheme has been surprisingly muted in Karnataka in contrast to the overwhelming protests by religious groups. The Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha too has expressed opposition to the stand of the religious leaders. Members of the Karnataka State Backward Classes Awareness Forum, the Dalit Sangharsha Samiti, and other organisations distributed boiled eggs to children in government schools in Mysore in a symbolic protest. The beneficiaries of the scheme would be mostly poor and Dalit children in rural Karnataka, who cannot afford an egg a week in their houses. Children from 15 government schools in Bannikuppe panchayat in Ramnagaram taluk in Bangalore Rural district have started a post-card campaign in support of the scheme.

But as things stand today, the advocates of "satvikisation" of food have an upper hand on the issue. A final decision on the issue will be made by Mr. Horatti on January 26 after another round of consultations.

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