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Mid-Day Meals: Looking Ahead
The Mid-Day Meal Scheme has been quietly feeding more than 10 crore children every day for more than 10 years. Unfortunately, this popular and relatively successful programme makes it to the headlines only when things go wrong - this time following the tragic death of 23 children in Bihar after eating at school. Recent economic research clearly documents the positive impact of the scheme on enrolment, attendance, retention and nutrition. Hopefully, the Bihar tragedy will provide an opportunity to redress some of the long-standing issues in implementation (food quality and accountability) by learning from states such as Tamil Nadu.
This is an expanded and revised version of an article that was published in The Times of India, 21 July 2013. I would like to thank Jean Drèze and Abhijeet Singh for their inputs.
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