VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS OF MID-DAY MEAL SCHEME IN KARNATAKA · PDF fileMID-DAY MEAL SCHEME IN KARNATAKA Final Project Report ... Sustainable Development Practice on the topic “Value

VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS

OF

MID-DAY MEAL SCHEME IN KARNATAKA

Final Project Report

Submitted by:

Ranjita Sapkota

In partial fulfilment of the requirement for the

Degree of Master of Arts in

Sustainable Development

Practice

DECLARATION

Student’s Declaration

This is to certify that the work that forms the basis of this project “Value Chain

Analysis of Mid-day Meal Scheme in Karnataka” is an original work carried out

by me and has not been submitted anywhere else for the award of any degree. I

certify that all sources of information and data are fully acknowledged in the

project report.

…………………………… Date: 27 May, 2015

Ranjita Sapkota

Masters in Sustainable Development Practice

TERI University

New Delhi, India

iii

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that “Ranjita Sapkota” has carried out her major project in

partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in

Sustainable Development Practice on the topic “Value Chain Analysis of Mid-

day Meal Scheme in Karnataka” during January 2015 to May 2015. The

project was carried out at the Plustrust Organization.

The report embodies the original work of the candidate to the best of our

knowledge.

Date:

……………………….. ...……………………….

Lalitha Iyer, PhD Papiya Guha Mazumdar, PhD

Founder Trustee Assistant Professor

Plustrust Organization Department of Policy Studies

Bangalore, Karnataka TERI University

………................................

Shaleen Singhal, PhD

Head of the Department

Department of Policy Studies

TERI University

New Delhi

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

As it is said that a dream doesn’t become reality through a magic, it needs hard

work, determination and strong support from others. I believe completing an

interdisciplinary research work too can never be a single person’s task. It is my

pleasure to thank all explicitly, those who are related to the domain of present

research work and those who motivated me in carrying out the work smoothly

and made this thesis possible.

First and Foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude and respect to my

mentor Dr Lalitha Iyer (Founder trustee of Plustrust Organization) for hosting me

for the period of five months (January-May2015) throughout my research.

Working under her motivated me in creating a research which not only fulfilled

my degree requirements, but also enhanced my knowledge in the research field.

This thesis work has provided a new platform to my career.

Secondly, I would like to thank my thesis supervisor Dr. Papiya Guha Mazumdar

(Assistant Professor, Department of Policy Studies, TERI University) for

providing me permission to work under this topic. Her wonderful guidance,

positive comments and motivating words were very vital in completing this

research. I would also like to thank the entire team of Department of Policy

Studies, TERI University who directly or indirectly helped me in gaining the

knowledge as well as applying those into this research.

Thirdly, I would like to thank IDEX Accelerator, which helped me to make my

dream come true to work in Karnataka state and carry out my research. During

my stay at Bangalore, I experienced a very friendly and supportive environment.

I would give special thanks to my colleague Ms Padma Reddy for helping me

throughout the entire field research period in rural villages of Karnataka. I

would also like to thank the officials of Food Corporation of India, State Civil

Supplies Board, FCI go-down, Contractors, transporters, and cooks along with

all those who help me to collect necessary data and information on time.

My academic achievements would not have been the same without the immense

support of my special friends and family members. A special thanks to my

parents for giving me the freedom and chance to pursue my own interest. I would

also like to thank my elder sisters Chandika and Nandita along with elder brother

Chandan and my friends Manita and Aarty and Aparna for their love, care and

support throughout all the time.

Not to forget Open Society Foundation for providing me Scholarships to pursue

my Master’s degree on Sustainable Development Practice from TERI University.

Last but not the least, a very big thank to all those whoever were there directly or

indirectly with me to make this research possible and this report a reality.

Altogether it was really an enjoyable and adventurous journey in accomplishing

this dissertation.

RANJITA SAPKOTA

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................iv

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................... viii

LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................... viii

LIST OF SYMBOLS/ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................... viii

ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... x

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 1

1.1 Background Information ......................................................................................... 1

1.2 Mid- day Meal Scheme in Karnataka ...................................................................... 2

1.3 Need for the research ............................................................................................. 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................... 5

2.1 What is Value Chain Analysis? ................................................................................ 5

2.2 Value Chain Analysis Technique ............................................................................ 6

2.3 Application of VCA Techniques ............................................................................. 6

2.3.1 School Fruits and Vegetable Scheme - UK ...................................................... 6

2.3.2 Agricultural Value Chain in Nigeria ................................................................ 7

2.3.3 Supply Chain Reform in Dairy Sector- India ................................................... 7

2.4 Rationale ................................................................................................................. 8

CHAPTER 3: OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY ................................ 10

3.1 Objectives .............................................................................................................. 10

3.2 Research Question................................................................................................. 10

3.3 Sources of Data Collection ................................................................................... 10

3.4 Methodology of the study (Schematic Representation) ........................................ 12

3.5 Study Area ............................................................................................................ 13

3.6 Sampling technique ............................................................................................... 13

3.7 Limitations of the research .................................................................................... 14

3.8 Ethical Consideration ............................................................................................ 14

3.9 Conceptual Framework ......................................................................................... 14

CHAPTER 4: MIDDAY MEALS SCHEME AND ITS SUPPLY CHAIN IN

KARNATAKA .................................................................................................... 17

4.1 Profile of Karnataka .............................................................................................. 17

4.1.1 Demographic Overview ................................................................................. 18

4.1.2 School attendance, infrastructure and academic performance of school going

children in Karnataka: Some recent evidences ....................................................... 18

4.1.3 Health and Nutritional Status among Children .............................................. 19

4.2 Scenario of MDM Scheme in Karnataka .............................................................. 19

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4.2.1 History of Mid-day Meals .............................................................................. 19

4.2.2 Objectives of Akshara Dasoha ....................................................................... 20

4.2.3 General Statistics of MDMS in Karnataka ..................................................... 21

4.3 Other School level programs similar to MDMS ................................................... 22

4.3.1 Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan .................................................................................. 22

4.3.2 Suvarna Arogya Chaitanya Programme ......................................................... 23

4.3.2.1 Rastriya Bala Swasthya Karyakram ........................................................ 23

4.3.2.2 Provision of micro- nutrients, Vitamin-A, de-worming medicine, Iron and

Folic acid (WIFS), Zinc .......................................................................................... 23

4.3.3 Distribution of spectacles to children with refractive error ............................ 24

4.3.4 Recording of height and weight ..................................................................... 24

4.3.5 Other schemes ................................................................................................ 24

4.4 Foods criteria’s under Mid-Day Meal ................................................................... 24

CHAPTER 5: STAKEHOLDERS MAPPING AND PROGRAM

IMPLEMENTATION WITH RESPECT TO MDMS ................................... 27

5.1 Stakeholders Mapping........................................................................................... 27

5.2 Internal Stakeholders............................................................................................. 28

5.2.1 State Level Actors .......................................................................................... 28

5.2.2 District level Actors ....................................................................................... 29

5.2.3 Block Level Actors ........................................................................................ 29

5.2.4 School Level Actors ....................................................................................... 30

5.3 External Stakeholders ........................................................................................... 31

5.4 Program Implementation....................................................................................... 32

Chapter 6: Value Chain Process of MDMS ..................................................... 34

6.1 Identifying all the Steps of Supply Chain Process ................................................ 34

6.1.1 Food Procurement .......................................................................................... 34

6.1.2 Transportation and Distribution ..................................................................... 35

6.1.3 Storage ........................................................................................................... 35

6.1.4 Preparation of Meals ...................................................................................... 36

6.1.5 Serving Meals to Children ............................................................................. 36

6.2 Value Chain for Flow of food grains and other items ........................................... 36

6.3 Value Chain for Flow of Funds .............................................................................. 37

6.4 Value Chain for Flow of Information ..................................................................... 38

6.5 Monitoring and supervision .................................................................................. 40

6.6 Current state Value chain map: Study Findings for Karnataka ............................. 41

vii

CHAPTER 7: ASSESSMENT OF WASTES, OPPORTUNITIES AND

CHALLENGES .................................................................................................. 43

7.3 Analysis of Wastes and Non Value Adding Components .................................... 43

7.1.1 Overproduction ....................................................................................... 43

7.1.2 Defects/ Bottlenecks in the System ................................................................ 44

7.1.3 Unnecessary Motion ...................................................................................... 45

7.1.4 Unnecessary Inventory ............................................................................ 46

7.1.5 Inappropriate Processing ......................................................................... 46

7.1.6 Wastes in Transportation ........................................................................ 47

7.1.7 Waiting .................................................................................................... 47

7.2 Challenges and Opportunities of MDM Value Chain in Karnataka ....................... 48

CHAPTER 8: MEASURES FOR EVALUATION ......................................... 53

8.1 Quantified Measures for Evaluation ..................................................................... 53

8.1.1 What matters for exact quantity delivery? ..................................................... 54

8.1.2 What matters for the quality delivery? ........................................................... 55

8.1.3 What matters for timely delivery? .................................................................. 55

8.2 Supply chain map of MDMS in Karnataka with Key Performance Indicators ..... 56

CHAPTER 9: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ....................... 58

9.1 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 58

9.2 Recommendation .................................................................................................. 59

BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................. 63

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4. 1: Demographic Overview of Karnataka .......................................................... 18

Table 4. 2: Children covered under MDMS- Karnataka ................................................. 21

Table 4. 3: Schools covered under MDMS-Karnataka ................................................... 22

Table 4. 4: Food Norms to be maintained by all the schools .......................................... 25

Table 4. 5: Cost Shared by Central and State Government ............................................. 25

Table 5. 1: State level actors and their roles on MDMS………………………..28

Table 5. 2: District level actors and their roles in MDMS ...................................29

Table 5. 3: Block level actors and their roles in MDMS ......................................30

Table 7. 1: Challenges and Opportunities under each process of Value Chain on

MDMS…………………………………………………………………………..48

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: Porter’s Value Chain Model ........................................................................... 5

Figure 3. 1: Methodology of the study…………………………………………………………………………12

Figure 3. 2: Map of Karnataka and Study Area .............................................................. 13

Figure 3. 3: Snowball sampling process for data collection ........................................... 13

Figure 3. 4: VCA Model ........................................................................................... 16

Figure 4. 1: Map of Karnataka…………………………………………………………………………………….17

Figure 5. 1: Stakeholders Map…………………………………………………………………………………….27

Figure 5. 2: Program Implementation at different levels in Karnataka ........................... 33

Figure 6. 1: Products flow map of MDMS………………………………………………………………….37

Figure 6. 2: Funds flow map of MDMS .......................................................................... 38

Figure 6. 3: Information flow map of MDMS ................................................................ 39

Figure 6. 4: Steering and Monitoring process map ......................................................... 40

Figure 6. 5: Value Chain Map-Current state ................................................................... 42

Figure 8. 1: Supply Chain Map of MDMS in Karnataka with KPI…………………………57

ix

LIST OF SYMBOLS/ABBREVIATIONS

MDM Mid-day Meal

MDMS Mid-day Meal Scheme

VCA Value Chain Analysis

PDS Public Distribution System

EDI Educational Development Index

KII Key Informant Interview

NGOs Non-Government Organizations

SSA Sarva Sikshya Abhiyan

SACP Suvarna Arogya Chaitanya Program

PAB Program Approval Board

NER Non-North Eastern States

DHFW Department of Health and Family Welfare

FCI Food Corporation of India

KFCSC Karnataka Food and Civil Supplies Corporation

TMC Taluk Monitoring Committee

DMC District Monitoring Committee

SMC State level Monitoring Committee

SDMC School Development and Monitoring and Committee

CRP Cluster Resource Person

x

ABSTRACT

The Mid-day Meal scheme (MDMS) has made a remarkable improvement in health and

education status of school going children in India; however the tragic death of children

after eating meals at schools often becomes the headlines of national newspapers. Being

the government led program a large group of actors are involved in its implementation

coming from central up to school level along with large processes of value chain. Over

thousands of researches have been conducted in past regarding the issues over MDMS

and mostly the policy makers at central or state level along with the program

implementers at schools are found to be blamed for not making it successful.

Unfortunately no efforts have been made so far to understand what is happening with the

chain in between the policy makers and school level implementers. This research seeks to

meticulously understand the process of value chain on MDMS in Karnataka state. All the

activities in value chain like products flow (supply chain), funds flow, information flow as

well as monitoring cum supervision mechanisms have been identified and presented

through maps using the basic concepts of Value chain analysis (VCA) technique. It also

attempts to design the basic format of VCA map that can be used by researchers, policy

makers or any stakeholders to analyse each and every stages of value chain in detail and

derive the value added solutions to improve the efficiency and effectiveness throughout the

process. The study employs the combination of primary research as well as secondary

analysis of government documents and reports to track the overall value chain of MDMS.

The study is based on qualitative data collected from five districts of Karnataka i.e

Mandya, Bangalore Rural and Tumkur, Bangalore Urban and Ramnagara.

Keywords: Mid-day meal scheme, Value chain, Schools, Karnataka, VCA map.

1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

(This Chapter provides the background information regarding the Mid-day Meal

Scheme and highlights the need for conducting research upon the Value chain on

Mid-day Meal Scheme in Karnataka.)

1.1 Background Information Eradicating Hunger and providing universal education to all the citizens are the

biggest challenges in developing countries. Almost all the countries in the world

have adopted a school feeding program or free launch programs to school going

children in order to eradicate the hunger as well as to attract poor children to

schools. Similarly in India, the Supreme Court came up with an order in 2001

that says fresh hot meals of appropriate nutritional value have to be served to the

children between 6-14 years age group at all government schools and

government aided schools across the country (Ghatak, 2010). Since then the

Mid-day Meals Scheme (MDMS) is being implemented throughout the country

with two-fold objectives of reducing classroom hunger as well as increasing

school enrolment at schools. Though the country has almost achieved its

Millennium Development Goal’s target of halving hunger population and

providing universal primary education by 2015, it is still a home to one quarter of

all undernourished people in the world (Mukherjee, 2014).

As per Department of School Education and Literacy, 10.45 crore children were

benefitted from the MDM scheme through 11.58 lakh schools during fiscal year

2013-14. To the country which has one of the largest child population in the

world such schemes is really a best way to overcome illiteracy, poverty and

hunger and create a healthy and educated future generation (Uma, 2013). The

enrolment of children at school has been improved in a large scale (Srinivasan,

2010); however there have been various issues associated with the scheme that

are restricting the government to achieve its target and make the effective use of

fund and resources invested upon it. Evidence has showed that there exists a

huge gap between allocation and off take of the food grains for the MDMS.1

1

The annual allocation of food grains for the year 2007 was 21.34 lakh tonnes whereas the

offtake was just 13.3 lakh tonnes. For more data and information see (Ghatak, 2010).

2

Along with this the huge amount of leakages of food grains throughout each and

every stages of supply chain and very less quantity delivery at schools is also a

common problem with the scheme (Ghatak, 2010).

1.2 Mid- day Meal Scheme in Karnataka In context of Karnataka it has long history with Mid-day meal scheme since 1946

when the then state government started providing cooked rice and yoghurt to

school children in Bangalore (James, 2013). Later in 1995, there was the

provision of providing 3 kg of rice/wheat per month per child who had 80 per

cent or more attendance (James, 2013). After 2002-03, it started spreading to

each nook and corner of the state following the Supreme Court order of 2001.

Till now it has undoubtedly improved the enrolment and attendance of the

children along with their nutritional status by reducing the malnutrition rate

throughout the state (Minj, et al., 2014); however there are so many incidences

that proves irregularity in delivery of food grains to rural schools, irregularity in

serving cooked meals at schools, delay in releasing funds at time, low quantity

and quality of food being served to children, lack of infrastructures in most of the

schools, no regular inspections from the higher authorities and very few or no

participation from community members on day to day supervision during launch

time at schools (Singh, 2012) .

Throughout the processes of planning/strategy formation, fund transfer,

implementation to monitoring and supervision of MDMS there is an engagement

of large chain (Tucker & Tewary, 2013). All those problems occur within

different stages of value chain on the scheme which are more of interlinked with

each other and have multiple impacts to the overall functioning of the program

that ultimately hinders in achieving the prime objective of Mid-day meal scheme

i.e to provide right quality of food with right quantity at right time to the children

for maintaining their good health and nutritive status along with willingness to

study at school. Therefore, besides investing huge amount of fund and resources

every year throughout the decades in an incremental rate the state government is

not being able to achieve its target.

Through the perspectives of value chain all stakeholders like central government,

state government, district level education department officers, block level

officers , school teachers and cooks, community members, private institutions

and suppliers have their own role to convert the scheme into reality. If something

3

goes wrong with one level it will impact to the whole chain of MDMS

restraining the children to get adequate and healthy meal.

1.3 Need for the research The reasons behind failure of MDMS are almost inclined upon the poor quality

of food grain, ineffective management by school committee, lack of incentives to

the cook cum helpers, upper castes opposition to dalit cooks, poor facilities in

school like poor drinking water, unhygienic toilets, delay in allocation of grain

by the state government, lack of monitoring and evaluation by the responsible

authority (Rama Mohan, 2014). Most of the criticisms are made against two

levels i.e either to central or state government or to the schools at ground level

when there arise the discussions regarding the effective implementation of

MDMs however the issues with quality of food grains, quantity of food as well

as regular supply/distribution of food in school may not always lies within the

school level or at policy level if seen through the broader perspectives on

involvement of various actors throughout the value chain.

Despite of investing huge amount of funds and resources why the government is

not able to achieve its target? Why there lie various complaints over the

ineffective application of MDMS in India? Why the states are not able to reach

to their goal besides taking multiple measures? What is happening with food

grains during transportation and distribution process, inside storage as well as at

schools and in schools kitchen? Are schools and schools staffs only the

responsible actors for not meeting the quality as well as quantity of meals? Is it

really important to do research upon the overall value chain? These all are the

common questions that evolve when viewed from the perspectives of value chain

process.

Many researches have been conducted upon ground level like school

management committee, Kitchen levels or selection of food varieties, quality of

food as well as nutrition over the food varieties. Similarly researches upon higher

level authorities like policy implementation, fund release, monitoring

mechanisms, decentralization of authority etc have been already made by various

researchers and evaluators however very few researches have been conducted

upon the process regarding where the food comes from, how it is transported and

how and when it reaches to the mouth of the children. The problem may not be

4

only within the ground level or at central level. Thus, each and every process

from field (grain production) to the stomach (cooked meal) must be identified

and analysed to find out the root cause of the problem on MDMS.

As there is involvement of several actors, the cause may not lie upon one

particular sector. One cannot point out a single party or actor for not

implementing the scheme. To find out the leakages within the scheme whole

supply chain of food grains need to be identified. Each and every processes need

to be understood and analysed in order to come up with some value added

solutions.

Thus there is an urgent need to systematically analyse of value chain on MDMS.

The value chain map is the key to understand each and every process of supply

chain along with the identification of non-value added components or wastes that

can be removed from the chain along with adding the value added components to

make the process effective and efficient. However, no researches have been

conducted in past by any researcher or policy makers regarding the value chain

analysis of MDMS. In order to analyse the whole value chain there must be a

format of value chain map along with key performance indicators which helps to

measure and quantify each and every activity throughout the process and helps to

identify the wastes or non-value adding components in each stages of value

chain.

5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

(This chapter reveals the present literatures surrounding the application of value

chain analysis techniques in service and non-profit sectors along with the issues

related with supply chain of Mid-day meals and rationale behind conducting the

research.)

2.1 What is Value Chain Analysis? A value chain is a set of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry

performs in order to deliver a valuable product or service for the Market (Arline,

2015). The term ‘value chain’ was first used by Michael Porter in his book

"Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining superior Performance" (1985)

(Dagmar Recklies, 2001). He provided a framework regarding how to develop

competitive advantage and where to add value to the organization. Though the

focus of Porter was on the manufacturing business, the concept of value chain

analysis is being widely used in all sectors including health, agriculture, mining,

product development, service sector (Humphrey, 2006).

Figure 2.1: Porter’s Value Chain Model

Source: (Porter, 1985)

According to Porter, there are two types of activities in business i.e primary

activities and support activities. The support activities provide support to the

primary activities which helps to add value to the organization. In context of

service value chain he highlighted on the reconfiguring of the value chain to gain

cost advantage. As per Porter, Service Value Chain is a bidirectional, cross-

6

functional approach that can enhance cost efficiency, maximize capital

utilization, increase profitability and even improve brand image (Rathee &

Rajain, 2013).

2.2 Value Chain Analysis Technique

After the three decades of porter’s model, various other models have been

developed in order to enhance the business, service or humanitarian interventions

areas like integrated value chain model, sustainable supply chain model, supply

chain governance model, value chain analysis (VCA) technique and various

other models (Papazoglou, et al., 2000).

In context of humanitarian intervention, value chain process is mostly analysed

through VCA technique which is widely used for demand management by

deriving value added solutions particular to the government programs and

schemes where there is an involvement of large stakeholders (Simons & Sadler,

2006). The value chain analysis (VCA) methodology was first introduced by

Hines and Rich in 1997 and later on subsequently been developed and extended

by the researchers like Rother and Shook in 1998 and Jones and Womack in

2002 (Taylor, 2005). However to date these techniques have not been applied to

study any government scheme in India. Dr David Taylor had applied the concept

of VCA while doing a case study upon the repatriation processes for Railway

Children in India for a non-government organization called SATHI in 2013. He

stayed in the railway platform of Pune for nine months to study the child

repatriation process in terms of both the physical processes through which the

child passes and the supporting information systems (Taylor, 2013).

2.3 Application of VCA Techniques

2.3.1 School Fruits and Vegetable Scheme - UK

Unlike in India this technique have used by many countries in order to

understand the flow of products as well as services in different programs and

schemes. For instance the government of United Kingdom had launched the

school fruits and vegetable scheme with an aim to increase consumption of fruits

and vegetables and improve the diet of children by providing a free piece of fruit

each day to children less than six years of age. After certain time the government

realize the challenge underlying on the scheme to deliver fruits to all 16000

schools in proper time with good quality. The research team then followed VCA

7

technique in order to analyse each and every stages of supply chain i.e from fruit

grown on a Kent farm through harvesting, processing and delivery to a primary

school in London. Their findings revealed the possibility to improve the

productivity of chain by taking action over all the stages along with 20 % of

reduction in costs (Simons & Sadler, 2006).

2.3.2 Agricultural Value Chain in Nigeria

Similarly in 2010, the Nigerian government was facing difficulties in managing

agricultural sector besides having huge potential on production as well as

availability of labour forces (Hartwich, et al., 2010). The government and policy

makers were unable to realize the need of lower scale farmers need for finance.

After analysing the whole value chain, the government was able to identify the

difficulty in access to financial services that had led to the ineffective

performance of whole agricultural sector. In 2012 the central bank come up with

a vision to industrialize Nigeria’s agricultural sector along with reforming the

fertilizer and seed sector for achieving long terms efficiency on agricultural

sector (Adesina, 2012).

2.3.3 Supply Chain Reform in Dairy Sector- India

In context of private organizations, social enterprise and some non-government

organizations in India, the importance of value chain have been realized by many

institutions in past. For Instance, during 1940’s there was huge strikes by the

dairy farmers in Gujarat against the exploitative middlemen in the supply chain

of milk and dairy products (Srinivasan, 2012). In order to eliminate those

middlemen within the long chain, the farmers formed their own cooperative

called Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF). Dr Verghese

Kurien led the systematic development of this milk cooperative through the

establishment of direct linkage between milk producers and consumers by

providing the rights to procurement, processing and marketing activities under

milk producers themselves.

At present GCMMF is a state level federation in Gujarat with a member base at

the grass roots of 3.18 million milk producers. In 2012 the sales turnover of the

cooperative was Rs 11668 Crores (US $2.5 Billion) (Srinivasan, 2012). The case

example of Anand (Amul) proves how the value chain development helps to

eliminate the wastes like middlemen inside the chain and add value to the both

producers as well as consumers.

8

Poor implementation of MDMS: Bottlenecks on food grain delivery process

Regarding MDMS, the Accountability Initiative had done case study on fund and

food grains flows for the scheme in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in 2013. Their

findings revealed that the reason behind the poor implementation of MDMS is

not only associated within the ground level i.e school committees or kitchen

committees but within each process of grain delivery i.e from farm production to

the final delivery of food grains to schools (Aiya, et al., 2013). Various problems

was identified in value chain processes like delay in transportation of food grains

to Food Depot, Demand of rangadaari2 by local truck unions while transporting

the food grains from one district to another, using the grains available for Public

distribution system (PDS)3 for MDMS in order to compensate the delay to fill the

block go-downs by State Food Corporations, conflict between the MDMS and

PDS dealers that leads to delay in transporting foods to the MDMS contractors,

lack of adequate human resources in go-down, difficulty in delivering grains to

school directly from the vehicles which requires extra costs to hire the local

labours for transportation and irresponsible teachers at schools (Tucker &

Tewary, 2013). According to the Centre for Policy Research, the bottleneck lies

in every steps of the delivery process which needs to be analysed further in order

to find out the reasons behind the ineffective implementation of MDM scheme in

India.

2.4 Rationale

Various researchers, organizations as well as government institutions are doing

research upon Mid-day meals regarding what is lacking, how to improve the

service, how to maintain the quality and how to reach towards the maximum

number of children however very few or no researches have been conducted so

far to look after the value chain and examine its operations. The government

authorities recently have come up with an ideas of involving external monitors

and relieving teachers from the scheme, involving youth volunteers from

National Service Schemes, ASHA workers to monitor nutrition and health

aspects of food scheme and testing the foods regularly in lab to check the quality

2

Tax taken by the local labor unions

3 Public Distribution System is a system in which both central and state government jointly

distributes subsidized food and non-food items to poor

9

with an aim to strengthen the supply chain of MDM scheme (Nanda, 2015),

however nothing has been initiated so far officially.

Karnataka is one of the successful states in India in terms of education and health

in comparison to other states. The state comes on fifth position in terms of

Educational Development Index (EDI) with a value of 0.661 (The Hindu, 2014).

Likewise for the improvement of health status among children the state

government has introduced various programs like providing vitamin A, de-

worming medicine, Iron tablets etc along with free health check up to the

children and free medical services if they need. The budget set out for the health

and education from the state government is huge compared to other states

(Siddaramaiah, 2013) . Similarly the state government provides milk to the

children thrice a week with its own budget along with free meals to grade 9-10

children (Department of Public Instruction, 2014). As the state has taken various

initiatives to improve MDMS along with other various programs to improve the

health and educational status among school going children, it is selected as a

study area for conducting research upon the value chain on MDMS.

As no research has been done in past on similar topic there is no format of value

chain map through which a systematic research can be conducted to analyse the

value chain and thus value added suggestion can be derived for each and every

stages. This research also tries to fulfil the gap by developing the basic format of

value chain map based on the concept of lean principles which may help the

policy makers, implementers and operators to conduct in-depth research upon

value chain in future and derive the appropriate value added solutions to each

problem.

10

CHAPTER 3: OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY

(This chapter provides the detailed information regarding the Objectives, research

questions and methodology adopted to collect data and information for the research.

Further it describes how the collected data are analysed under the Conceptual

framework of Value Chain Analysis Model.)

The Specific objectives and research questions of the research are as following-

3.1 Objectives Objective 1: To meticulously understand the process of value chain on mid- day

meal scheme in respect to Karnataka.

Objective 2: To design the format of value chain analysis (VCA) map, that uses

the basic concept of Value Chain Analysis Technique.

3.2 Research Question

Research Question for Objective 1:

- Who are the major stakeholders involved in MDMS in Karnataka?

- What is the role each stakeholders in overall value chain of the MDMS?

- How various products flow from one stage to another throughout the process

of supply chain on MDMS?

- What are the mechanisms of funds flow for different stages of supply chain?

- How do the information flows from one level to another in MDMS?

- Who operates monitors and regulates in each stages of supply chain?

- What are the leakages/wastes in value chain processes? What mechanisms

are used to overcome such leakages?

- What are the opportunities and challenges associated in value chain process?

Research Question for Objective 2:

- What are the basic components that add value to the primary beneficiaries

of MDMS?

- What are the key performance indicators in each and every stages of

value chain on MDMS?

3.3 Sources of Data Collection

To identify the above objectives and research questions, qualitative research was

conducted. Karnataka as a state has been selected for the study. A detailed study

of all the stages of value chain was carried out throughout state. Both primary

11

and secondary data collection method were used in the research. The primary

data are collected from

Key Informant Interview: Key informant interview (KII) was conducted to

understand the entire process of supply chain with the selected people like

government officials, store keepers, teachers, NGOs etc. The detail information

regarding Key Informants is attached in Annexure (A.1).

Observation: The whole process of supply chain from district level to the

schools in the selected regions was observed. Mode of vehicles used in

transporting the grains and the process of loading, moving and dispatching the

grains to storage house, transportation process from storage to Private entities or

schools, Kitchens where foods are cooked and the entire process of how the

cooked meal is distributed to the children are observed.

Semi Structured Interview: Semi Structured Interviews were carried out with

different stakeholders regarding the supply chain, food grains and other

ingredients, their individual role and their perception especially with school

teachers, principals, gram panchayats, taluk panchayats and district panchayats

along with government officers and private institutions involved in supply chain.

The questionnaires used for the interview is attached in Annexure (A.2)

Focus Group Discussion: Three FGD was conducted among the teachers as

well as parents group in selected study region. Two FGD’s was conducted in

rural areas among School teachers and one with community members. One FGD

was taken among teachers group in one primary school at Bangalore.

The Secondary Data was collected from:

- Government reports and publications

- National and International Journals and research papers

- Online portals and web blogs

- Newspaper articles, books and newsletters

- Past research and publications made in same field

12

3.4 Methodology of the study (Schematic Representation)

Figure 3. 1: Methodology of the study

Secondary Sources

Government reports and publications

National and International Journals and

research papers

Online portals and web blogs

Newspaper articles, books and newsletters

Past research and publications made in

same field

Primary Sources

Observation

SSI

Focus group

discussion

KII

Step 1 Collecting data and information on each and every stages

of Value Chain on Mid -Day Meal scheme.

Step 2

Identifying and analysing of current state of Value

Chain process throughout the state.

Step 3

Identifying key performance indicators, the

wastages or non –value added components within

the chain along with challenges and opportunities.

Step 4

Developing the basic format of Value chain map

using quantified measures to evaluate the efficiency

and effectiveness of whole chain (both within and

off the process).

13

3.5 Study Area

Figure 3. 2: Map of Karnataka and Study Area

The field research was conducted in five districts of Karnataka i.e Mandya,

Bangalore Rural and Tumkur and Bangalore Urban and Ramnagara for primary

data collection. Both rural and urban areas have been selected for the study in

order to go through the in-depth study.

3.6 Sampling technique

Two schools in each district were taken as a sample to follow up with the supply

chain of food grains along with other required food items for the MDM scheme.

The selection of school was taken in a random basis whereas after the schools,

snowball sampling technique was used to follow up with the chain associated to

the supply chain.

Figure 3. 3: Snowball sampling process for data collection

Tumkur

Mandya

Bangalore Urban

Bangalore Rural

Ramnagara

14

3.7 Limitations of the research

- Meeting with key informants on the scheduled dates and time was a great

challenge. Due to their busy schedules interview got postponed several times

causing delay for the data collection process within the speculated time.

- Language was another biggest challenge especially dealing with Primary

level school teachers, parent groups, cooks, taluk level officers as well as

contractors. Local language translator was needed throughout the research

period.

- Usually it takes almost one year or more to conduct the follow and observe

and map the overall process of value chain however everything was

completed within available four months. Therefore the findings and

generalizations made from the research may be limited.

- As the maps are designed in word format it may not be clearly visible. Due to

lack of budget the proper software to draw the map is not being used in the

research.

3.8 Ethical Consideration

The research was conducted under consideration of research ethics. While

collecting primary data and information prior approval was taken from the

respondents to meet them and observe their place. Although school visits was

taken randomly, the research was conducted only after taking permission from

the school principals and concerned authorities. Photographs and videos were

obtained by securing proper ethical consents from the respondents. While

conducting KII verbal/official permission was taken prior the interview. Proper

citation is made to the data and information derived from secondary research.

Full confidentiality is maintained as per the request of the respondents in

disclosing their personal details in the report. Proper attention is given for rapport

formation and research conduction in an unbiased and objective manner.

3.9 Conceptual Framework

The Value Chain Analysis (VCA) Technique is used to analyse the collected data

and information which is widely used these days in improving the supply chain

in various sectors including both business as well as non-business sectors

(Taylor, 2013). Along with the concept of VCA technique the basic concepts of

lean principles is adopted in this research in order to present the whole process of

supply chain, identify wastes and suggest the valuable option to improve the

processes and add value to the whole chain.

15

The VCA approach is based around the development of a series of visual, easy to

understand ‘maps,’ which can be developed using paper and pencil (Taylor,

2013). There is no requirement for complex computer programs to draw the

VCA map and it can be easily understood by all the stakeholders. Visual

presentations of findings help to develop an effective means of communicating

the outputs and recommendations for the improvement in the process of supply

chain of MDM.

These maps will provide a visual, concise and quantified evaluation of current

operations and improvement opportunities. The advantage of this approach is

that it can bring in the most engaged stakeholders to understand and make

significant improvements. It provides a consistent and holistic set of

performance measures for value chain activity.

Likewise, Lean principles is a systematic approach that attempts to identify and

eliminate wastes (of time, effort and materials) through continuous improvement,

and enhance the value to the beneficiaries by flowing the product at the pull of

the customer, pursuing perfection on all sides (Manrodt, et al., 2012). Lean

thinking basically aims to deliver more and more with less and less (Taylor,

2007) which mostly focus upon reducing costs, minimizing inventory through

different techniques, maintaining total quality control and optimizing gain for all

the partners.

The origin of the concept of lean principles goes back to 1920s when Henry ford

came up with the concept of “continuous flow” to the assembly line process

which basically focused upon reducing cost through improving quality of the

product. Later on in 1950s a Japanese company Toyota realized optimizing the

whole process adds value to the supply chain rather optimizing only one part of

the process. Toyota then introduced the Toyota Production System with a focus

on both customer and suppliers. Five lean principles were introduced which are

value, flow, pull, responsiveness and perfection (Manrodt, et al., 2012). Seven

wastes derived following the lean principles by Toyota are the popular form of

wastes that can be identified in any type of value chain. The wastes of MDMS

value chain in this research are identified in terms of seven wastes of Toyota.

Usually VCA technique under lean principles is used to identify the systematic

approach to process improvement involving the following steps in this research:

16

- Identify all the steps in supply chain of MDMS from the start to the end

of the process

- Develop quantified measures to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness

of the individual steps within the process and of the process as a whole

- Identify ‘waste’ and ‘non-value adding’ elements within the process

The above steps for VCA of MDMS is adopted from the David Taylor’s VCA

approach that he applied in understanding the value chain of child repatriation

process in SATHI in 2013. The following diagram shows the basic conceptual

framework of VCA technique:

Figure 3. 4: VCA Model (Taylor, 2013)

As per the above framework there are four basic steps in VCA technique through

lean principles, however this research has focused only up to step 3. As there is

no proper format of Value chain map that is already developed it took almost all

four months to understand and map the whole process of value chain. Therefore

it was not possible to identify each and every wastes and non-value adding

elements within the process, which takes at least six months to complete the

process however the attempts are made to identify the most common wastes

through the interview, observation and KII with the concerned stakeholders.

Thus using principles of ‘Lean Management’ and the methodology of ‘Value

Chain Analysis’ very clear ideas have been generated regarding what should be

done to add value to the existing chain in order to ensure and safeguard

children’s interests as well the effective use of government fund and resources in

context of MDMs.

17

CHAPTER 4: MIDDAY MEALS SCHEME AND ITS SUPPLY

CHAIN IN KARNATAKA

(This chapter provides the demographic overview of Karnataka state along with

the current scenario of health and educational status among children. Similarly

it highlights the background information on MDMS within the state including

historical overview, current statistics as well as various criteria included on the

scheme.)

4.1 Profile of Karnataka

Karnataka is a middle ranking state among 15 major states of India bounded by

Maharashtra and Goa in the North and North West, Arabian Sea in the west,

Kerala and Tamilnadu in the south and Andhra Pradesh in East. It lies within

11.5 degree North and 18.5 degree North latitudes and 74 degree East and 78.5

degree east longitude (NIDM, 2013). The state has 30 districts and 176 Taluks.

The climatic condition is semitropical in the state. Agriculture is the backbone of

the people in Karnataka and is characterized by wide crop diversification.

Though the state is developed in comparison to other states, the condition of

bottom low is very severe as they are totally dependent upon rain-fed agriculture.

Drought and floods are common in northern region. Seasonal migration takes

place to neighbouring states like Maharashtra, Hyderabad and Goa during the

drought period. The capital of Karnataka is Bengaluru which is regarded as the

IT hub of India.

Figure 4. 1: Map of Karnataka Source: mapsofindia.com

18

4.1.1 Demographic Overview

The state covers an area of 191,976 square kilometres (74.122Sq miles) with 5.8

percent of total geographical area of India. It is the eighth largest Indian state by

area and ninth largest state by population. The literacy rate of the state is higher

than the country average which shows the positive sign of development.

Table 4. 1: Demographic Overview of Karnataka

Source: (Karnataka Population Census, 2011)

4.1.2 School attendance, infrastructure and academic performance of school

going children in Karnataka: Some recent evidences

As per DISE report 2014-2015, 10789765 children are enrolled in schools

including 5373425 in primary level and 2971572 in upper primary level. There

are 78690 schools including 26292 and 34590 in primary and upper primary

levels respectively. Achievements in education in Karnataka have been quite

remarkable, and the state is moving towards universal literacy at a steady pace.

As per 2011 population census, Literacy rate in Karnataka is 75.36 percent

compared to literacy rate of 66.64 in 2011 (Karnataka Population Census, 2011).

In terms of Annual Education Development Index (EDI) which is calculated on

the basis of four parameters: access, infrastructure, teachers and outcomes,

Karnataka is in fifth position with EDI value of 0.661 in the country in the fiscal

year 2012-2013 (NEUPA, 2013). Regarding the infrastructures in schools, 94.01

percent of schools have their own Kitchen Sheds in the state out of country total

of 74.92 percentage and almost 100 percent of schools have drinking water

facility. The student-classroom as well as pupil-teacher ratio is almost less than

30 in government primary schools. Not only that the female to male ratio is

0.939 which is almost better in comparison to other states (U-DISE report, 2015).

19

4.1.3 Health and Nutritional Status among Children

Karnataka has already met the MDGs 4 target of reducing the under-five

mortality to 38 but 1.2 million children are still malnourished in the state. As per

census 2011, 44% of children below five are stunted, 18% are wasted and 38 %

are underweight in Karnataka. The life expectancy at birth is 65.3 years. The

child sex ratio has slightly increased from 946 to 948 from 2001-2011 (Ministry

of Health and Family Welfare, 2014).

The state has been actively spending upon improvement of health status of

children. The total public spending on children has increased from 13 per cent of

the total expenditure in (2001–02) to 30 per cent (in 2013–14) by Karnataka

government (Siddaramaiah, 2013). Out of total spending on children almost 78

percent accounts for education followed by 10 percent food security and 5

percent health (The Hindu, 2014). After the implementation of the Mid-day meal

scheme the undernourishment among children has been reduced to a large extent.

Overall the health status of children in the state is satisfactory in comparison to

other state however lot of improvement needs to be done to eradicate the

malnourishment totally.

4.2 Scenario of MDM Scheme in Karnataka

4.2.1 History of Mid-day Meals

The history of MDMS scheme goes back to 1925, when Madras government

introduced the mid-day meal program in Madras Municipal Corporation

especially for disadvantaged children (James, 2013). Besides receiving huge

protests the then chief minister continued to provide free meals to the school

going children in the state. In August 15, 1995 the Department of Elementary

Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development through

Government of India launched this scheme as nationwide scale (Deodhar, et al.,

2010); however it started being universalized only after the Supreme Court order

against a PIL in 2001. The landmark order of Supreme Court was:

“The State Governments /Union Territories to implement the Mid-Day Meal

Scheme by providing every child in every Government and Government assisted

Primary Schools with a prepared mid-day meal with a minimum content of 300

20

calories and 8-12 grams of protein each day of school for a minimum of 200

days.”4

As Supreme Court made the scheme to be compulsorily implemented by all the

states and the violation of which can be taken up in the court of law all the state

slowly started providing free midday meals to children in government and

government aided schools.

Likewise Karnataka state government begin implementing the program from

2001-02 with seven educationally and economically most backward districts i.e

Raichur, Koppala, Gulbarga, Bidar, Bellary, Bagalakote and Bijapur

(Department of Public Instruction, 2014). Later on it was extended to remaining

23 districts as an Akshara Dasoha program in a phased wise manner. The system

of providing 3 kg of food grains per child per month to the children of primary

level on the basis of 80 percent was continued till 2003-2004 but it was stopped

and replaced by hot cooked meals after introducing Akshara Dasoha program to

the schools throughout the state (James, 2013). The scheme got expanded up to

7th

standard from 2004 and slowly up to 8th

Standard from central government.

Along with central government, Karnataka state government through its own

fund and resources has added 9th

and 10th

standard children as well under the

scheme (Department of Public Instruction, 2014).

4.2.2 Objectives of Akshara Dasoha

The main objectives of the program are:

- To improve enrolment and attendance

- To improve retention rate

- To improve child health by increasing nutrition level

- To improve learning ability levels of children

- To bring about social equity

As per Department of School Education and Literacy, MDMs is serving around

10.45 crore children with hot cooked nutritious food through 11.58 lakhs schools

throughout India. Around 25.70 lakh cook cum helpers mainly from SC/ST/OBC

communities have been engaged by nation (Department of School Education and

Literacy, 2014) for preparing MDM which itself is a good effort from

countryside to empower women from marginalized communities. In Karnataka,

4

Supreme court order dated 28th

November, 2001

21

Mid-day Meal (MDM) is provided full fledge to all 30 districts (Department of

School Education and Literacy, 2014). In Urban areas like Bangalore mostly the

private institutions or NGO’s prepare and supply meals to schools whereas in

rural areas School directly plays an important role from receiving grains, storing

as well as cooking and serving the hot cooked meal to the children.

4.2.3 General Statistics of MDMS in Karnataka

As of fiscal year 2012-2013 MDM service was provided by 55113 schools

including both government and government aided schools throughout the state

(Department of Public Instruction, 2014). The total number of beneficiaries from

the scheme at the same year was 6254267 (Department of Public Instruction,

2014). The details regarding the schools covered as well as children covered

under MDMs throughout different years are given below.

Table 4. 2: Children covered under MDMS- Karnataka

Source: Department of Public Instruction

Similarly there were 55113 schools in 2013 including both primary and upper

primary schools providing meals to the children in Karnataka. The details can be

seen in following table:

22

Table 4. 3: Schools covered under MDMS-Karnataka

Source: Department of Public Instruction

On the basis of the achievement made during the fiscal year 2013-2014 the

Program Approval Board (PAB)-MDM has approved to provide MDM to

6921454 children through 55882 schools including 22421 primary and 33461

upper primary schools. MDM is now provided to children throughout the year in

drought prone areas. During vacation also children can go to school and have

meals. Throughout Karnataka 1876577 children are being benefitted with meals

in vacation as well. The details on approval made by PAB for the number of

schools, school days and school children for quantifying the central assistance

for Karnataka is given in Annexure A.3.

4.3 Other School level programs similar to MDMS

4.3.1 Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan

As per 86th

amendment of constitution of India to get free and compulsory

education from the government school is the fundamental rights of children of 6-

14 years age group. Sarva Sikhshya Abhiyan (SSA) is Government of India’s

flagship programme attempted to achieve Universalization of Elementary

Education (UEE) in a time bound manner as mandated by the constitution. To

address the needs of 192 children in 1.1 million habitations the central

government in partnership with state government is implementing this program

since 2000-2001 (Sarva Shikshya Abhiyan, 2015).

The program focuses on opening new schools in the areas where there are no

schools along with strengthening infrastructures and other facilities in existing

schools like building additional classrooms, providing additional teachers,

23

trainings to teachers, providing drinking water facilities etc in block as well as in

district level. In this digital era, SSA focuses upon building additional skills of

children with special care to girl’s education and children with special needs.

4.3.2 Suvarna Arogya Chaitanya Programme

Under Suvarna Arogya Chaitanya Programme (SACP) various programs are

implemented in school for ensuring better health status of children. They are:

4.3.2.1 Rastriya Bala Swasthya Karyakram (School Health Program)

Under this program all the students from 1-10 studying in Government and

Government aided and unaided schools are subjected to health check up by the

PHCs5 and Government hospitals doctors. It was started since 2006-07 and is

being carried out throughout the nation in cooperation with the Department

Health and Family Welfare. In case of detection of serious health problems

children are given with special medical treatment free of cost. Under this

program 108597 children of 1933 schools are covered up to Dec 31st 2014 in

Karnataka (Ministry of Human Resource Development, 2015).

The students are given with health cards and they can get the service through that

card from doctors. The fuel charges for doctor’s vehicles are provided from the

Mid-day meals scheme funds. The fund is distributed @Rs 60,000 to 70,000 per

Taluk. Whereas in case of serious ailments like heart, kidney, and eyes,

orthopedic problems the children are treated in major hospitals under National

Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scheme funds (Anon., 2015).

4.3.2.2 Provision of micro- nutrients, Vitamin-A, de-worming medicine, Iron

and Folic acid (WIFS), Zinc

Apart from hot cooked meals, children are provided with supplementary nutrition

in the form of vitamin ‘A’ and de-worming (Albendazole) Tablets once in six

months and Folic acid tablet thrice in a week (Department of Public Instruction,

2015).

5

Public Health Centers

24

4.3.3 Distribution of spectacles to children with refractive error

Around 5148 children with refractive error were benefitted from the spectacles

distribution from government in the state (Department of Public Instruction,

2015).

4.3.4 Recording of height and weight

As per the Rastriya Bala Swasthya Karyakram the height and weight of children

is recorded by the headmaster in health check-up registrar at schools

(Department of Public Instruction, 2015).

4.3.5 Other schemes

In order to reach the maximum number of children throughout the country the

Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is launching different

programs in Educationally Backward Blocks (EBB) in rural areas (Department

of School Education and Literacy, 2014). Some of them are Model schools,

Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalay, construction of girls hostel etc. On the basis

of female literacy rate and gender gap in literacy the EBB are selected and the

special programs are conducted in such regions so that no children are left behind

the bar of school and other health facilities. Out of total 180 blocks in Karnataka,

74 are listed as EBB where special focus is given by the government to ensure

that no child is behind the bar in context of education which is their basic rights

(Educationally Backward Blocks, 2015).

4.4 Foods criteria’s under Mid-Day Meal

The food items under the MDMS are different to different states as their

preferences to food in their region. Whereas the Central government has set up

certain norms under which each food items that are cooked and served to

children must meet some minimum requirements upon quantity and quality so

that no child will be left with less calories of food.

25

Table 4. 4: Food Norms to be maintained by all the schools

Source: Ministry of Human Resource Development

Food grains in the form of Rice and Wheat are to be provided to children by 100

grams and 150 grams for primary and upper primary level respectively. For

Pulses usually dal or sambhar6 is given with minimum quantity of 20 gms as

pulses and 50 grams as vegetables. Vegetables and spices are bought from local

market by the schools in order to ensure fresh and healthy foods to the children.

Table 4. 5: Cost Shared by Central and State Government

Source: Ministry of Human Resource Development

As Karnataka belongs to Non- North Eastern (NER) States, the cost is shared in

the ratio of 75:25 by central and state government respectively for Primary and

upper primary schools. Whereas the state government is bearing overall costs of

meals for secondary schools children.

Ragi

Karnataka state government provides Ragi7

to some selected districts like

Mandya, Chikkaballapura, Kolar, some parts of Mysore in addition to the items

set up under the central government food norms. The state government is bearing

6

Liquid food made from the combination of daal and vegetables mostly consumed in Southern

part of India 7

Millet

26

overall cost for ragi as central government only provides rice and wheat from its

depots (Department of Public Instruction, 2015). For ragi the state government

through Karnataka State Financial Cooperation procures at market rate from state

funds (Prasad, 2014).

Milk

With an aim to control anaemia and malnutrition amongst the children from class

1 to 10th

standard in government and government aided schools, Karnataka

government introduced “Ksheera Bhagya Yojana” in August, 2013 which

provides 150 ml hot milk thrice in a week to the children. Per child Rs 5.18 is

spent per day for milk which is greater than overall meals costs (Department of

Public Instruction, 2015). For Ksheera Bhagya Yojana, the state spent the

amount of Rs.314.00 crores in the year 2013-14 (Department of Public

Instruction, 2015). The cooks are paid an additional honorarium of Rs.100/- per

month for preparation of milk.

27

CHAPTER 5: STAKEHOLDERS MAPPING AND PROGRAM

IMPLEMENTATION WITH RESPECT TO MDMS

(This chapter attempts to identify the list of stakeholders that are

involved in MDMS in Karnataka along with their individual roles in

overall value chain of MDMS. Similarly it also tries to highlight the

process of program implementation within the various levels under

government.)

5.1 Stakeholders Mapping

Figure 5. 1: Stakeholders Map

28

5.2 Internal Stakeholders

They are the core players for the entire Mid-day meal scheme. As MDM is a

government scheme, all the activities like planning, procuring of food grains and

other ingredients, storing and transporting grains, transferring funds along with

implementation, supervision and monitoring is done by the government

institutions. The state government is responsible to implement and regulate the

program under the basic criteria set up by the central government. As India has

29 states and all of them have their own culture and way of living their

preference for food is also different. Therefore different varieties are provided to

children in different states by meeting the minimum criteria set up by the central

government. The roles of Internal Stakeholders under different levels are given

below:

5.2.1 State Level Actors

Under Karnataka State government the following bodies are responsible for

implementing MDM scheme:

Table 5. 1: State level actors and their roles in MDMS

Agency/Actors Department/ units Roles in MDMS

Karnataka Food and

Civil Supplies

Corporation

Department of Food,

Civil Supplies &

Consumer Affairs

Lift food grains under MDMs,

Invite tenders for supply of Toor

Dal and Double Fortified salt as

per transparency act and supply

Toor Dal, Edible Oil and Salt at

taluk level.

Director MDMS,

Joint Director

MDMs

Department of

Public Instruction

Implementing the MDMs

throughout the state.

Principal Secretary State Government Constituting Steering cum

monitoring committee, conducting

state level meetings.

Additional Chief

Secretary

State Government Monitors the MDM Scheme at

State level

Treasury Treasury

Department

Deposit funds to District level

(Zilla Panchayat) through e-

29

transfer

Doctors (Public

Health center)

Department of

Health and Family

Welfare (DHFW)

Providing the vitamin and D

worming tablets to the district level

5.2.2 District level Actors

The District level authorities play the role of program implementation through

communication, fund transfer, monitoring and supervision to taluk and school

levels.

Table 5. 2: District level actors and their roles in MDMS

Agency/Actors Departments/units Roles in MDMS

District MDMS

Officer/CEO of

Zilla Panchayat

Department of

Education

Program implementation and the

supervision, coordinate the program

with the cooperation of various other

departments both to state level as well

as to block level

Education

Officer (Akshara

Dasoha)

Department of

Education

Assist CEO of Zilla Panchayat in

implementing the scheme.

Deputy Director Department of Public

Instruction

Act as a liaison officer between DPI

and Zilla Panchayat, assist and co-

ordinate at the district level

implementation of MDM program,

providing utilization certificates to

districts as well as collecting and

distributing vitamin and D-worming

tablets from DHFW.

5.2.3 Block Level Actors

The block level officers deal with the district level officers as well as school

level staffs along with transporters and taluk go-down staffs.

30

Table 5. 3: Block level actors and their roles in MDMS

Agency/Actors Department/

unit

Roles in MDMS

Executive

Officer

Taluk

Panchayat

Help CEO in taluk level in implementation

of MDMs through ensuring that all the food

supplied from State Civil Supplies board

reaches to schools and Kitchen centers,

supervising the food is served in a proper

manner at schools, receiving the funds from

CEO and deposit to the joint account of Head

Master and Head cook at school.

Block

Education

Officer

Department

of Education

(Taluk Level)

Acting as a link between Executive Officer,

Taluk Panchayat, Gram Panchayat, SDMC

and Headmaster seeing that all school

children are getting the good quality fresh

meal, submitting school wise details to

ZillaPanchayat and state levels along with

the utilization certificate on time.

Assistant

Director

Department

of Education

(Akshara

Dasoha)

Visit every schools at least 25 percent per

quarterly period in each taluk , observe

overall functioning of MDMs in school and

report it to CEO of Zilla Panchayat.

5.2.4 School Level Actors

Head Master: The headmaster is responsible for implementing MDM scheme at

school level. He/she provides the daily attendance details of students to cook so

that the cooks can cook the food accordingly. The headmaster need to ensure that

the food is served to all students, ensure the supply of food grains to school,

providing food indent and utilization certificate to Block Educational officers,

ensure proper quantity of food served to children and ensure the clean and

healthy surroundings within school. Also the role of headmaster is to ensure that

the regular work of teachers at school is not affected from the launch program.

31

School Teacher: Everyday two teachers from school must taste the food before

serving it to the children in order to ensure that the food is clean, tasty and

healthier.

Cook and Help cook: Two cooks will be there in each school. One head cook

and another help cook. They are responsible to cook the food in daily basis and

serve to the children. They must be women from marginalized or disadvantaged

groups from the local community.

Children: Children are the main stakeholders to whom the final product (meal)

is to be served. They are students from Grade 1-10 in all government and

government aided schools. In drought prone areas they are served with meals

even in summer vacation.

Centralized Kitchens

In most of the urban and semi-urban areas there is a prevalence of centralized

Kitchen system in which private institutions or Non-government organization

takes the responsibility to cook and provide mid-day meals to schools. There are

78 NGOs in Karnataka who are providing meals to almost 5640 schools covering

around 10.46 lakhs children across the state (Department of Public Instruction,

2015). Akshayapatra8 which is the largest Mid-day meal supplier through its

centralized Kitchen in whole India is actively performing in Karnataka including

many other small NGO’s.

5.3 External Stakeholders

As the MDMS is government run program there is active involvement of internal

stakeholders i.e government institutions at various levels, however there is a

great role of external stakeholders in making it successful. Their individual roles

are:

Farmers: They supply food grains to the central government. The Food

Corporation of India procures rice and wheat from farms in a subsidized rate.

Also the suppliers of daal and other ingredients also buy grains from farmers.

Local Market: The school authorities buy the vegetables and spices from the

local market. The local gas agencies (Indian gas) supplies gas cylinder to the

school.

8

An NGO that is providing the mid-day meal to almost 1.4 million children in every day in India

32

Funding Agencies: The NGO’s or public institutions get funds and donations

from various agencies which they use to enhance the quality of Meals they

prepare for schools.

Contractors/suppliers: The state civil supplies board through the bidding

process recruits the contractors who are responsible to supply dal, oil and other

ingredients to the state.

Transporters: They load the food grains from state level to the taluk level and

finally to schools. Different transporters are hired by the government officials at

different level as per the requirements.

Media: As per the right to information act, general public have the right to

observe the process of grain supply as well get the information they require. The

principal secretary answers the public queries and deploys the recent

achievements and progress made by the state as well as receives the feedback

through radio once in every quarter.

Community members/Self-help groups: The local community member plays

the role of monitoring the program at school level. Also actively participate in

the program through SDMC, hiring cooks from the community and regularly

visit school and check out whether the meal served is of good quality.

Parents: At least two persons from parents groups especially mothers of children

who studies in the school visits the school every day and checks the quality of

the food.

5.4 Program Implementation

The program is implemented by the state government under the norms set up by

central government along with the assistance of food grains and financial

resources. Government institutions are involved at all levels to implement the

program from Central to state to district to taluk and at last Schools in final. The

responsibility to implement the program goes to chief executive officers of the

Zilla panchayath at district level and executive officers of the Taluk panchayath

at taluk level. In state level the principle secretary for Primary and secondary

education, commissioner for public Instruction and Joint Director coordinates

with the Zilla Panchayath through their assistants for the program

implementation. Their individual role is specified in previous section. The

following figure shows the hierarchy among the government officers at various

levels for the implementation of MDMs.

33

Figure 5. 2: Program Implementation at different levels in Karnataka

Source: Mid-Day Meal Scheme (Department of Public Instruction)

Overall the government has major role in planning, implementing as well as

monitoring each and every activity for the effective implementation of the

scheme. Nevertheless the external stakeholders like community members,

transporters, farmers, markets, private institutions also have their own role in

making the program successful. The prime responsibility to implement the

program is of state government whereas to make it successful lot of stakeholders

are engaged in with.

34

Chapter 6: Value Chain Process of MDMS

(This Chapter tries to frame the overall value chain process of MDMS including

supply chain process, food grains flow, funds flow, information flow and

monitoring and supervision mechanisms through graphical format. After

combining all individual activities and processes the current state value chain

map is prepared which reflects the complete state of value chain on MDMS.)

6.1 Identifying all the Steps of Supply Chain Process

The supply chain of MDMS refers to the overall process of food grains and other

materials flow in order to produce the final product i.e hot cooked meal to the

children. There are various stages of supply chain on MDMS which are given

below:

1) Food Procurement

2) Transportation and distribution

3) Storage

4) Preparation of Meals

5) Serving meals to children

6.1.1 Food Procurement

Rice and wheat are procured from the central government in subsidized rate from

farms under the Public distribution system whereas rests of the grains like dal,

ragi including salt, oil are procured by the state government. Karnataka food and

civil supplies corporation is the agency to procure these items to state through the

contractors. Unlike other states Karnataka state government through its own

expenses has extended the meal program up to Grade 10, thus the responsibility

for procuring the additional amount of rice to children goes to State civil supplies

board. The contractors to supply salt, oil and dal are hired though bidding

process. The entire responsibility for supplying the food grains goes to these

contractors. For school children studying in 1-8th

grade the central government

procures rice and wheat.

Though the food grains are procured through state, the perishable items like

vegetables and spices and salt in some districts along with gas cylinder are

35

procured from school level on requirement basis. The local market is used for

procuring these additional items on day to day basis.

6.1.2 Transportation and Distribution

The distribution takes place every month from Food Corporation of India (FCI)

go-down to the Karnataka Food and Civil Supplies Corporation (KFCSC) at

taluk level before 2nd

week of every month. Similarly the contractors for other

food grains and ingredients also supply the required items to the taluk level as

per the indent placed by the KFCSC. All these items are then collectively

distributed to the schools. The distribution to school started from 2nd

week of

every month and reached to all the schools by the end of maximum 5th

of another

month. As the schools received the food grains one month in advance and keep

one month buffer stock there is no disturbance in timely preparation of meals.

The transportation is arranged by FCI as well as the contractors respectively up

to taluk level. From Taluk to school level transporters are appointed by the zilla

panchayat who are responsible to distribute food grains to all the schools on

time. The local transporters are given priority for supplying food grains to the

school. To control the leakages that may happen in transportation the

government has issued a circular for all transporters to install electronic weighing

machine at the time of distribution of food grains to schools along with advising

headmaster to check the weight and report it to taluk level officers if found with

low quality.

6.1.3 Storage

Storage of food grains takes place in three levels i.e District level, Taluk level

and School level. Rice and wheat is stored in district level FCI go-down and as

per the requirement they release it to the taluk level every month as per the

direction of zilla panchayat. All the food grains are collected in KFCSC go-

down at taluk level. The food items are stored in such a way that there will be

always 1 month buffer stock in both KFCSC go down and in schools. The

separate room is constructed by the government for storing food grains and other

items at school level. The First in first out (FIFO) method is applied to maintain

the quality of the meal throughout the period.

36

6.1.4 Preparation of Meals

The head cook and cook cum helpers are responsible for preparing the meal.

Their work starts from around 9-10 O clock in the morning to till 2:30-3:30 in

the evening. It is the responsibility of head cook to buy vegetables and spices

from the local shop/market. After obtaining vegetables and other ingredients they

clean the kitchen, clean the grains and pulses, cut the vegetables and starts

cooking. In Karnataka’s schools the items in menu are mostly rice, chapatis,9

ragi and sambhar. They have to follow the mandatory rules set up by government

while cooking like wearing cap, gloves, apron etc. It takes almost two hour to

prepare the meal. By 12 Noon in almost all schools food is ready.

6.1.5 Serving Meals to Children

The hot-cooked fresh meal is served at launch time starting from 12:30-2:00

depending upon schools. The headmaster must be present while serving the food

and he should ensure that the meal that is being served is clean, healthy and in

appropriate quantity to the children. Similarly two members from either parents

or mother’s group must visit the school and observe the quality and quantity of

meals served to the children.

6.2 Value Chain for Flow of food grains and other items The flow of food grains takes place from farms to the schools and there comes

several stages like buying, storing, loading, distribution and transportation. Rice

and wheat are procured from central level which flows from through the chain of

District FCI go-down to the taluk level KFCSC go-down to the school. And

additional rice for grade 9-10 students, daal , oil and salt which are procured

from state government flows directly to taluk level KFCSC go-down from

contractors and then to school.

The overall food grains are collected in Taluk level go-down both from FCI

district go-down and from the supply agencies of KFCSC and then together

move to the school’s go-down. In case of LPG Gas the school buys it from the

nearest Gas Agencies and as of now Indian Gas Agency supplies cylinders to the

schools as per their demand. Regarding Milk, the Karnataka Milk Federation

directly supplies milk packets fresh in 1 Kg packs directly to the schools based

upon the average requirement and indent report. The sugar required for preparing

9

The round shape bread made of wheat. Also referred as roti.

37

milk is bought from the local shops by schools through the contingency grant.

Similarly vegetables and spices flow from local shops or mandis to the schools

directly on a daily basis.

Figure 6. 1: Products flow map of MDMS

6.3 Value Chain for Flow of Funds The fund is transferred from Central government to the states in quarterly basis.

On the basis of previous years fund requirement and as per the state government

estimation the government releases its financial share to state government

treasury. As Karnataka is non-NER state the total cost is shared by central and

state government in the ratio of 75:25. In addition, the state government of

Karnataka bears the entire costs for grade 9-10 children along with ragi and

Milk. As there is no provision of supply of ragi from central government the state

government is providing raghi in its own expenses. For milk the Karnataka

government is spending the entire costs under Ksheera Bhagya Yojana at the rate

of Rs 5.18 per child per day and now integrating the scheme into Akshara

Dashoha.

The state government through the state government treasury makes e-transfer to

the zilla Panchayat. zilla panchayat office deposits the fund to the Block level

office. The Block level officer i.e Assistant Director then makes e-transfer to the

joint account of head cook and head master at school. The transfer of fund is

based as per each unit student cost which is passed from school to taluk office to

38

zillaPanchayat to state government. The fund transfer is made one month in

advance to make sure no school suffers from cash shortage.

Figure 6. 2: Funds flow map of MDMS

6.4 Value Chain for Flow of Information Information flows from bottom level to top level and vice versa. The school

submits indent report to taluk level at the end of each month which contains

overall information regarding the amount of food grains they received from the

transporters, their quality and quantity at the time of delivery, how much the

school utilized and how much is remaining surplus or deficit at the end of month.

It also contains information regarding the remaining balance (contingency grant)

at the end of month at schools and how much they require for next month for

meeting the needs. Along with the indent report the mother roaster, Children

daily attendance register, Inspection register from the monitoring committee,

visitors book, register sheets from teachers are the source of information that is

used by Block level office to fill in its MIS portal. The communication media for

the school and block level office is Cluster Resource Person (CRP). The block

level officers’ conduct regular meetings with the CRP and circulate information

to school through him/her.

The information uploaded in the MIS portal at Block level goes to the District

level and similarly to the state level. Both the block level office and district level

39

offices pass the information to whole government unit through MIS portal which

helps to know about each and every detail of taluk offices, district offices as well

as schools. Anyone under that unit can get the information and updates regarding

what are happening to which schools. The district level officers upload the

information to their websites for public as well. On the basis of overall

information received from different levels along with the monitoring and

inspection details , regular meeting and feedback from different stakeholders the

state government publish monthly, quarterly, half-yearly as well as Annual report

for the general public.

Figure 6. 3: Information flow map of MDMS

40

6.5 Monitoring and supervision

Monitoring and supervision is done in all levels from state to school. The

steering and monitoring committee headed by additional chief secretary monitors

the program in state level. He/she discloses all the information to the Education

Department and Commissioner of the state education along with other

stakeholders through the principal secretary.

Similarly, the District level Monitoring Committee (DMC) headed by deputy

commissioner monitors the scheme in district level. The CEO of zilla panchayat,

Deputy Director of Public Instruction, Educational officer of MDMS, supply

agencies of FCI and KFSC along with educational standing committee of zilla

panchayath hold meeting once in a quarter in order to discuss about Scheme at

district level.

Similarly at Taluk level, Taluk level Monitoring Committee (TMC) headed by

Assistant commissioner, Education officer (EO), Block Education Officer (BEO)

along with cluster officer monitors the program. At school level Head Master,

SDMC10

members, Mother Committee and Gram Panchayat as well as self-help

groups are there to steer and monitor the scheme. In the year 2014-15, 59

meetings took place at District level and 216 at Taluk level.

Figure 6. 4: Steering and Monitoring process map

10

School development and monitoring committee

41

6.6 Current state Value chain map: Study Findings for Karnataka

After the combination of all the chains which are interlinked with each other it

becomes the value chain. The map given below shows how each and every

activity are interlinked with each other and are conducted simultaneously to

make the whole scheme implementing successfully. Problem occurs in one small

activity may obstruct the functioning of whole supply chain causing inefficiency

and ineffectiveness in terms of service provided to beneficiary i.e children.

Overall the following map shows the current state value chain map of MDMS in

Karnataka.

42

Current State Value Chain Map of MDMS in Karnataka

Figure 6. 5: Value Chain Map-Current state

43

CHAPTER 7: ASSESSMENT OF WASTES, OPPORTUNITIES

AND CHALLENGES

(This Chapter identifies and analyzes the non-value adding components

particularly referred as wastes within the value chain of MDMS in Karnataka.

Similarly it highlights upon the existing opportunities and challenges of MDMS

both on and off the process.)

7.3 Analysis of Wastes and Non Value Adding Components

An important aspect of the lean approach to process improvement is the focus on

waste or non-value adding activities. The wastes refer to the unnecessary and

unwanted activities, leakages or any malfunctions in particular stage of value

chain process that adds costs without value. Though it takes almost a year to

follow the entire process of chain, observe them and identify the typical wastes

especially in quantified terms in each activity, the common wastes that take place

most of the times during the process of supply of product, information or fund

are identified from this research. As per lean approach wastes are analyzed in the

form of seven wastes which was initially adopted by Toyota in its supply chain

system. They are:

- Overproduction

- Defects

- Unnecessary Motion

- Unnecessary Inventory

- Inappropriate Processing

- Transporting

- Waiting

7.1.1 Overproduction

Overproduction in supply chain refers to production of more goods or services

than the actual requirement. In terms of MDMS value chain overproduction

includes, procuring more amount of food grains than what exactly requires,

storing food grains for longer duration than needed, multiple use of

transportation for supply of grains to same school, over documentation,

unnecessary meetings and visits from the officers, preparation of meals to overall

44

staffs including outsiders or visitors at school and over documentation at school

level.

Sometimes the food grains are procured in huge amount than exactly required

excluding one month buffer stock then it adds extra costs as well, occupy more

spaces of the go-down as well as increase the time length between food harvest

and consumption. Longer the gap between the grains harvest and consumption

lower will be the quality of the food. Storing food grains for longer duration

than actually needed will restricts to procure other types of food grains because

of competition with space. Also the chances of getting affected with rodents,

pests will be higher.

It was found that the supplies of some food grains are not consistent in some

areas either due to shortage of food grains in market or due to delay in supply

from contractors. In such cases the taluk level go-down won’t be able to send all

the required food grains and materials to the schools at a single time. As a result

they have to use transportation multiple times to the same school. This will lead

to overuse of resources than the usual requirement.

At school level various documentations need to be done for the same sorts of

information and meetings including outsiders’ visits. As all the procedures are

done through registers there are high chances of manual errors in reporting. The

major wastes observed at schools were the overproduction of meals. Almost in

all schools it was found that the meals were prepared for all the staffs including

outside visitors too.

7.1.2 Defects/ Bottlenecks in the System

Defects refers to the work or activities that leads to imperfections or failing

deterring the normal functioning of the process, inappropriate decisions or

requires rework. For instances errors in internal documentation, inadequate

information flow within the internal stakeholders, lack of proper understandings

of owns roles and responsibilities and , sometimes not taking the quantity

measurement as well as quality check of food grains, lack of adequate staffs, lack

of technical knowledge and extra use of resources on unnecessary activities.

The error in documentation while making the indent report leads to either more

or less quantity order of food grains that can cause grain insufficiency throughout

45

the month at school. In most of the places the community members are not active

in monitoring as well as quality checking of meals prepared at school on a day-

day basis. Almost in 90 percent of sample school very few or no visits from

parents and mothers group were observed. Though they had to keep the mother

roaster, two members from parent group must sign the register mentioning that

the quality of meal was good and quantity was adequate such practices were

found in very few schools. .

In some districts like Ramanagara, the state government is not being able to

procure dal to the schools due to the failure of contractors to supply them on

time. The shortage in supply of toor dal is prevailing for past three months as a

result the state government has asked schools to fulfill the requirements through

the alternatives dal with similar price and nutritive value to toor dal from the

local market. Initially schools faced the problems with adequate supply of dal

that affected the overall quality of the meal but now they are buying dal from

local market. This has led to add extra work to the headmaster and cook. There is

no proper mechanisms to check and assure the quality of dal procure from local

market as the supply is very less and they have no choice except buying

whatever is available in market. Also the prices are not flexible in local market

and sometimes the headmasters need to add money from their pocket.

In addition to this another defect is the unavailability of technologies like weight

measurement machine in most of the schools. The cooks are supposed to check

the quantity as well as quality of food grains while receiving the grains from the

transporters whereas due to absence of machines they are not able to check

properly. Similarly the water purifier is not provided to all schools as a result the

quality of meals may not be as good as it is to be.

7.1.3 Unnecessary Motion

This refers to the unnecessary movement of actors that does not add value

instead leads to overuse of time and resources. In MDMS value chain this

includes unnecessary travelling from officers and staffs working in program

implementation, meetings cancelled at last hour after all arrangements and

activities done without proper planning.

46

Meetings get often cancelled after arranging everything at last hour either within

SDMC members or within block level, district or at state level officers. The

tendency to cancel meeting at last hour results in waste of time and financial

resources which affects the entire value chain of the scheme.

Similarly visitors visit without prior information to meet the officers at taluk,

district or state level staffs. Those officers need to give their extra time which

may not possible all the time. When purchasing grocery or vegetables to school

proper planning is required and if not planned properly there will be unnecessary

motion like going to same market many times. If planned and prepared properly

unnecessary travelling can be avoided.

7.1.4 Unnecessary Inventory

The unnecessary inventory refers to the extra quantity of resources that are used

more than actually required for immediate purpose. For instances excess amount

of funds remain at the end of particular period besides meeting all the

requirements for that time frame, excessive buffer stocks in the storage, caps and

gloves not fully used by the cooks, lots of documentation, and cooking meals

more than required quantity and underutilization of meals by the children.

7.1.5 Inappropriate Processing

Inappropriate processing are the unnecessary activities or procedures that are not

needed for particular context to produce what the beneficiary requires. In MDMS

value chain inappropriate processing are too many actors involved in particular

tasks, too many formalities to be made, unnecessary processes that adds

workload to the cooks as well as cause wastes of resources and time, use of

traditional mechanisms besides getting new technologies etc

Within the government offices there are various formalities to be made through

both top-down as well as bottom-up approach which incurs lot of time to get

approval for a small decision also. For instances for getting food grains at school

the indent report must be submitted to block level officers by schools which after

approval from block level officer the technical staffs uploads the report to the

MIS of block level office, then it goes to district level officer. There again he/she

need to approve it and forward it to state level. It will further reaches to

Karnataka state civil supplies board and after their approval the food grains will

be supplied to the civil supplies taluk level go-down and so on to school. Within

47

this process it almost takes a month or more. Similarly for fund order and release

process is also long though they provides fund three months in advance

As per the usual norms only two teachers are supposed to taste the meal before

serving it to children whereas all the teachers were found to consume meals on a

daily basis which was the total overproduction of meals. Regarding the purchase

of vegetables, it is the head cook who is supposed to buy them from local market

but almost in all schools headmasters are found to be active in performing that

role. Such activities may create conflict between two actors and may affect to the

day-day functioning on the chain.

At school level a very less participation from the community members was

observed. Though there must be an active involvement of community members

at schools like participating on regular SDMC meetings, making regular visit to

school by at least two parents a day, visits from mothers group on paper and

documents their participation is very less in real scenario.

7.1.6 Wastes in Transportation

Transport is moving something or somebody from one place to another. Waste

of transport is unnecessarily or not required movement of something or

somebody from one place to another. In case of MDMS, when there is shortage

of food grains in the market, the transporters have to transport only the available

food grains. As there is a provision to supply all the goods together from storage

this will leads to the use of vehicle twice through the same route. Using

transportation multiple times increase the costs as well as incur unnecessary

troubles to the transporters. This will lead the overuse of available resources

along with adding unnecessary costs and waste of time.

7.1.7 Waiting

Waiting is a process of being inactive in one place expecting something which is

time consuming as well as wastes creating activity on the value chain. For

instances waiting for order to receive, grains to be procured, received, transport,

stored as well as finally reaching to school, cooks being idle at kitchen waiting

for vegetables to purchase from local market, transfer of funds, waiting for

reports submitted by the schools or block level office etc.

48

The state level agencies must wait till the order get placed from the bottom levels

in order to release the food grains to the taluk level go-down and finally to

schools. Also the process of fund transfer from one level to another takes time,

however government has made a system to transfer fund 3 months in advance to

avoid delay and shortage of fund at schools.

The cooks need to sit idle at kitchen until the headmaster purchase vegetables

and spices from the local market and provide it to them. Again after cooking

meals cooks need to wait for the lunch break time in order to serve the food to

children.

At each level they have to do documentation and reporting to higher level thus

they have to wait for the reports and information from both higher as well as

lower level in order to do any activities either releasing grains, funds or

disclosing information to general public.

7.2 Challenges and Opportunities of MDM Value Chain in

Karnataka There are tremendous opportunities and challenges for MDMS value chain in

Karnataka. As per the understanding and mapping of entire value chain through

the observation as well as interviews with the officers associated with

implementing the scheme at different levels along with the interactions made to

various external stakeholders the following opportunities and challenges are

derived under each stages of value chain of MDMS:

Table 7. 1: Challenges and Opportunities under each process of Value Chain on

MDMS

49

Process/Activities Opportunities Challenges

Food

Procurement

- Easy to procure as the food

grains especially rice and wheat

are procured by FCI in

subsidized price directly from

farmers

- High level of trust with

government bodies in terms of

clear rules and regulations as well

as fast payment process that helps

to get contractors as a food grains

suppliers easily through bidding

process.

- High production of Milk within

the state.

- Failure of contractors to

supply required quantity of food

grains on time especially with

dal and ragi. For instance, for

past 3 months it has become a

challenge for state government

to procure dal for the schools.

- Shortage of grain

production within state leads to

import it from other states or

countries which require long

process to go through.

Transportation

and Distribution

- Local transporters are hired for

taking grains from one

distribution to another which

leads saving of time, cost and

human resource.

- No need to use government

owned vehicles for food

distribution.

- Availability of technologies like

electronic weighing machine that

helps to control quantity leakages

- Sometimes the

transporters and distributors

failed to supply the food grains

within specified time frame

- Delay in transporting

food grains to the rural schools

especially which are far from

the regional state.

- Leakages of food grains

in transportation where

electronic weighing machine

are not fixed.

Storage

- No need of storage for

vegetables and other perishable

items as they are purchased

directly from local market by

schools on day to day basis.

- Lack of storage room still in

some schools which has

compelled them to store food

grains either at school offices or

at class rooms.

50

Process/Activities Opportunities Challenges

Storage

-No need of separate storage for

MDMS as it can easily integrate

with other programs like TPDS

whose storage houses already

exist in all over the state.

- Prevalence of rodents and

pests problems with food grains

in some district level and taluk

level go-downs.

Preparation of

Meals

- In urban areas there is a

prevalence of centralized kitchen

system through the direct

involvement of private

institutions or NGO’s in

preparation of meals and serving

it to children. This helps

government to save its financial,

technical as well as human

resources on the implementation

of MDMS.

- In rural areas local women are

hired as cooks from community

members who must belong to

marginalized and underprivileged

groups. This has led to

empowerment of women both

socially as well as economically.

- Involvement of parents through

mother groups at schools helps to

raise awareness regarding the

importance of nutritious food in

their children and family’s life.

- Some of the small

private institutions and NGO’s

have failed to meet the

standards set out by the

government on the quality as

well as quantity of the meals.

- Problem of

untouchability exists in some

rural districts which has led the

schools to hire cooks from

higher caste groups forcefully.

In some areas the parents

themselves have refused to send

their children at school with a

reason showing that the cooks

belong to lower caste groups.

- Complaint from cooks

regarding their low salary. The

government is providing very

less salary to them in

comparison to the minimum per

day labor wage rate. This has

led to the decrease in

motivation level among cooks

in preparation of tasty meals

51

Process/Activities

Opportunities Challenges

Storage - Use of modern and systematic

techniques for cooking like

wearing caps, gloves and apron

while cooking, cooking on gas-

stoves etc

- Challenges faced by cooks to

wear caps, gloves and apron

while cooking including other

modern equipment’s for

cooking.

Serving Meals to

Children

- Milk is served at the time of

assembly and meals are served at

the launch break time thus there

is no need to set out extra time

for both students as well as

teachers for the MDMS.

- Presence of headmasters while

serving food to children builds

trust upon MDM quality among

parents.

- Emotional attachment between

children and cooks as cooks are

respected as their mothers by

children and in return cooks treat

children as their own child. This

encourages cooks to be more

responsible while cooking and

maintaining the quality of meal.

- Underutilization of

meals by majority of children in

urban areas.

- Overuse of resources

(food grains and vegetables) for

serving whole staffs at school

including visitors.

- Very minimal or no

participation of parents member

for observation while meals are

being served at school.

Flow of Funds

- Prevalence of e-transfer has led

to the scheme to function more

effectively and efficiently.

- Very less fund provided

for the purchase of vegetables

and spices.

52

Flow of Funds - Flow of fund three months in

advance helps the concerned

authorities to procure and supply

food grains on time as well as

helps them on planning regarding

the systematic purchase of grains

as well as other perishable items.

- - Sometimes teachers have to

spend their pocket money on it.

- The instability of market

prices as well as in food grains

and vegetables availability

sometimes compels schools to

compromise with the quantity

or quality of the products.

Autonomy of headmaster on

fund available for purchasing

gas, vegetables, dal and spices.

Flow of

Information

- Use of Management

Information system (MIS) portal

leads the fast and efficient flow of

information among all internal

stakeholders. This also provides

an opportunity to maintain good

communication as well as

coordination among officials at all

levels.

- The use of MIS at

school level is absent which

may be a big challenge for state

government as they have to

recruit a technical staff to make

data entry on computer in each

schools which may incur huge

cost.

Monitoring and

supervision

- There are monitoring cum

supervision committees in all

levels which helps to make the

officers responsible and

accountable towards their work

as well as to higher level

authorities.

- The system of monitoring is

through hierarchical basis which

helps the lower level officers

especially to be more responsible

towards program implementation

- So often the meetings

get cancelled at last hour after

arranging everything which

shows the inconsistency among

government officers.

- Very minimal or no

participation of local

community and parents groups

for MDM practices at school

level.

53

CHAPTER 8: MEASURES FOR EVALUATION

(This Chapter identifies the key performance indicators along with the quantified

measures for evaluation of each process of value chain. Using these key

performance indicators the basic format of Value Chain Analysis Map is

designed which can be used to understand and analyze the entire value chain of

MDMS.)

8.1 Quantified Measures for Evaluation

According to lean principles the measures for the evaluation is developed as per

value added components for the supply chain. Mostly the chain is measured on

the basis of quality, costs, time, human resource and competitiveness. As it is

said quality competes with the costs and the program is government led the focus

is given more in quality improvement rather than reducing costs. In context of

MDMS all these measures can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the supply

chain but after research upon what factor exactly adds value to the beneficiaries

i.e children, then three factors are derived. They are:

- Quantity

- Quality

- Timely Delivery

For a child the right quantity of food with right quality in right time plays a vital

role their good health as well as their motivation towards study, which is the

primary goal of MDMS. Thus these value added components for the Scheme can

be used as key performance indicators for each part of the process. These

indicators is used to measure the effectiveness of each and every steps of supply

chain through quantified measures and helps to identify the wastes underlying in

individual activities. This will help to get a clear picture regarding what is

happening in each steps of MDM supply chian and what can be done to

overcome with defects if exists any.

Unless there are enough quantities of food grains at school students won’t be

able to get the right amount. Until there is enough care in each and every

54

activities in supply chain, the quality of food at the time of meal distribution

cannot be expected. Similarly, unless all the activities on the chain are performed

regularly within proper time frame, the program may not be effective to achieve

its goal. After the observation at all stages, SSI and KII with the government

officials at all levels from district level to schools and direct interaction with

community members the following factors were derived which really matters to

make the program effective through above indicators.

8.1.1 What matters for exact quantity delivery?

- Packaging: The way of packaging plays a vital role in maintaining the

quantity of food grain. If the grains are packaged properly with quality packaging

materials like non-woven bags then there is very low chance of grain leakages

either on transportation or on storages.

- Technology used in each stage: The type of technology used throughout the

process determines the quantity delivery of food grains up to last stage. For

instance the mode of transportation used, use of weight measuring machine at

school, type of cook stoves used for cooking etc.

- Storage condition: The condition of storage house must be safe with adequate

availability of space. The rodents as well as pests problems can occur in storage

that can lead to the decrease in quantity of the grains. The required action must

be taken to avoid rodents and pests problem. Also safeguarding the storage is

necessary to prevent it from being theft.

- Monitoring and supervision: monitoring cum supervision must be done in

each and every stages of value chain for the smooth flow of products, funds as

well as required information. This helps to control the leakages of food grains

that take place in various stages either due to mismanagement in the process or

by the negligence from responsible actors at different levels or from corruption.

- Cooking and serving mechanisms: Huge quantities of food are wasted while

cooking and serving. Various precautions can be adopted while taking food

grains out of storage, cleaning the food grains like cleaning rice and dal with

water, cooking as well as serving it to children in order to control the leakages

and make maximum use of the available foods.

- Utilization of meals among children (food intake/underutilization): The

tendency to eat less by children as well as the tendency to avoid MDMs from the

55

children of high income groups leads to the underutilization of food and

resources at schools.

8.1.2 What matters for the quality delivery?

- Packaging: The chances of getting pest problem with grains will be higher on

the woven bags compared to non-woven bags. Similarly the rodents can easily

tear and eat the grains from the bags.

- Duration of grain storage in go-down: The quality of food grains is

dependent upon how long they are stored in the go-down. Longer the time length

between foods harvests from farms to final consumption the more the possibility

of degradation of quality. The maximum time food grains spent on overall chain

is on go-down which may affects to the quality of the grain.

- Storage condition: The condition of storage must be good with proper

ventilations and light to the room, free from dusts, pests as well as other

unwanted materials.

- Monitoring and supervision: Similar with quantity the effective monitoring

cum supervision must be done to ensure good quality of food grains in each and

every stages of value chain. This helps to maintain the standard set out by the

government in terms of quality of food grains throughout the process.

- Duration of cooking: The food must be cooked for certain duration of time.

Both undercooking and overcooking will affect to the quality of meal. This may

lead to loss of nutrients value on meal.

- Use of other ingredients in preparing meal: Both the quality and quantity of

water used for cleaning as well as cooking affects the quality of food. The water

must be clean and free from any kind of harmful chemicals. Also the right use of

spices helps to add taste as well as overall quality of food.

- Cleanliness at all levels: The cleanliness must be maintained throughout the

entire supply chain either on go-down, school storage, kitchen level or within

cook. The sanitation and hygiene within school premises also affect to the quality

of food. Use of caps and gloves by cooks while washing vegetables, cooking as

well as serving helps to maintain the good quality of meal.

8.1.3 What matters for timely delivery?

- Proper Information flow (timely order and timely release): The information

flow must be made to right authorities at right time in order to ensure the timely

56

delivery. When the food grains are ordered and when they are released from

concerned authorities determines the overall timings taken for the food grain

delivery up to final chain.

- Technology used in each stage: The type of technology used in each stages

affects the time taken for the delivery process. More the technologies are modern

less will be the time will incurred for movement of food grains throughout the

chain and will ensure efficiency in timely delivery.

- Fund release: The time taken for releasing the fund from one stage to another

affects to the overall food grain delivery process. The earlier the fund is release

the more easily and faster the food grain will be procured and transferred from

one stage to another.

- Types of contractor: The contractor selected from the bidding must be reliable

and belong to local region. The more the contract is clear and well understood

the more it is easier to deal with contractors and expect timely delivery of food

grains.

- Co-ordination of all activities (reporting, storage, transferring funds,

information flow): For the effective delivery of food grains each and every

activities must be function properly in their place. The process of reporting,

storage, fund transformation, information flow, use of technologies, and

coordination among all the actors must be in proper place at program

implementation level.

- Distance: The distance between state level go-down and district level go-down

determines the time taken for food grains to reach up to school. More time will

be incurred for supplying food grains to rural areas than in urban areas.

8.2 Supply chain map of MDMS in Karnataka with Key Performance

Indicators

By using the above Key performance indicators in each process of value chain

the performance of whole value chain can be measured. The overall value chain

analysis (VCA) map of MDMS along with key performance indicators for each

process of value chain is given in Annexure A.4. The supply chain map of

MDMS in Karnataka along with KPI is presented below:

57

Key

Performance

Indicators

for

each part

of

the

process

Supply Chain Map of MDMS in Karnataka with Key performance Indicators

Products Flow

Figure 8. 1: Supply Chain Map of MDMS in Karnataka with KPI

58

CHAPTER 9: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

9.1 Conclusion

Mid-day meal scheme being one of the largest school feeding programs in the

world has undoubtedly improved the enrolment and attendance of the school

children along with an improvement in their nutritional status by reducing the

malnutrition rate among them in India. Karnataka state government seems to be

more active and serious in implementing the scheme to each and every part of

the state compared to other states of India. The state government with its own

fund and resources has initiated to provide meals to grade 9-10 children. In

addition to every day’s hot cooked meal every day, it is also providing milk in

every alternate day to all school going children which is highly commendable.

But still the state government is not able to implement the scheme effectively and

efficiently. As many researches was conducted upon the identifying issues and

complaining about the government no researches have been done so far to know

what exactly is the whole scheme operating, who all are working throughout the

process of food procurement, distribution, storing, cooking, fund transfer,

information flow, monitoring and supervision tasks. This research sought to

meticulously understand the process of value chain on mid-day meal scheme in

respect to Karnataka and design a basic format of value chain analysis map

which can be used by researcher, analyst or policy makers to conduct in depth

research regarding issues underlying in each and every activities for Mid-day

meal value chain analysis and can derive value added components on the chain.

The research was conducted for five months in six districts of Karnataka

following the supply chain of MDMS from schools to the state level government.

As the scheme is government led, there is an active involvement of government

officers in all the levels from state to the ground level at schools along with

private organizations, contractors as well as local community members. All the

activities are carried out systematically by using new techniques and

technologies including cooking, food grains distribution, storage and

transportation, fund transfer, information flow as well as monitoring and

supervision however there are still bottlenecks or non-value adding components

underlying almost in all stages of value chain that are restricting to implement

59

the program effectively and efficiently. All those bottlenecks which are also

called wastes as per lean principles are identified and analyzed within the format

of seven wastes developed by Toyota Company. They are overproduction,

defects, unnecessary motion, unnecessary inventory, inappropriate processing,

transportation and waiting. Similarly there are tremendous opportunities for the

scheme to get successfully implementedwithin the state like high level of public

trust with the government officials, high amount of milk production within the

state, access to new technologies and flexible nature of the scheme along with

challenges on other hand like failure of contractors to supply grains on time,

shortage of food grain production within state, delay from the transporters,

frequent leakages of food grains on transportation and distribution process at

various levels, lack of infrastructures at schools like storage room, clean drinking

water, access to market, evil practices within community like untouchability, low

motivation among cooks to prepare quality foods, underutilization of meals

among children in urban areas and corruption of food grains and funds at

schools.

As the prime objective of the MDMS is to provide right quantity of food with

right quality at right time to the children, these three components i.e quantity,

quality and timely delivery are the value added components for the scheme to

make it successful. To measure the performance of each and every stages on

value chain and identify the issues and challenges underlying in all levels one

can follow the detailed format of value chain analysis map which is designed on

the basis of the overall research process. Overall, the analysis of value chain is

crucial to get broader understandings on what is happening in the overall process,

make the actors realize the importance of each and every activities on the chain

and replace all non-value added components with the value added components

instead of traditional way of only finding the issues and criticizing the actions of

government.

9.2 Recommendation

The understanding of value chain process is the most important step in order to

make the scheme more effective and efficient with the maximum utilization of

available resources. Each and every stages of value chain must be analyzed

properly in order to come up with the value added suggestion for the

60

improvement of whole scheme. Though the complete analysis of value chain as

per the lean principles and value chain analysis technique was not possible from

this research due to limitations of time and available resources along with no

prior research upon the similar field before maximum efforts have been given to

map the current state of value chain, role of various stakeholders as well as

prevailing issues, wastes or defects, opportunities and challenges in each and

every stages of the chain. The most important recommendation for researchers or

policy makers or any stakeholders is to use the value chain analysis map format

in order to deeply understand and analyse the value chain of MDMS. The VCA

map format presented in Annexure A.4 is designed as per the context of

Karnataka however similar format can be generated and used by other states to

analyse the entire value chain on MDMS and derive a value added solutions over

the issues. Along with VCA map the following value added recommendation is

derived from the understanding of overall issues, wastes as well as challenges

associated with the value chain of MDMS.

- Priority to local farmers

Agriculture is the main occupation of people in the state as more than 65 percent

of people are engaged in agriculture so the food grains procurement can be done

directly from local farmers and if in case a district or region is food deficit it can

be refilled from other states supply through FCI. The task of procuring as well as

distribution of food grains can be directly handover to the district level office and

zilla-panchayat. This will reduce the tendency to depend entirely upon the states

and FCI besides having surplus amount of grains, cereals and vegetables in local

community. As the rice and wheat amount won’t be that much huge for MDMS at

schools it can be easily purchased from local market directly from farmers. This

will create multidimensional impact as in one side the food will be procured

easily which will be fresh and with high quality and in other side this will help to

reduce the length of supply chain of food grains as well as all the related

procedures and formalities with the different officials at different levels. This will

also reduce the time that the food grains are stored in the storage. On the larger

ground this will also motivate the farmers to grow the crops without any fear of

getting low prices in market, improve their economic condition and in long run

help to solve the food security problem at household level including the

61

improvement of health as well as educational status of children. The food items

that is purchased directly from farms will be healthier and of high nutritive value

as they will be consumed right after purchasing without storing for long period of

time. This will also help to enhance the health status of children. Not only that the

schools will get an opportunity to procure local products which will be easily

accepted and consumed by children. This also helps to reduce the existing rate of

underutilization of meals among children at schools.

Thus the priority to local farmers must be given while purchasing food grains for

MDMS as this is the most effective method in terms of removing the extra chains

from the overall value chain that will help to reduce the use of resources in all

terms like costs, human resources, time. The whole value chain can be enhanced

through the improvement of all three key performance indicators that are quality,

quantity and time.

- Community kitchens

Similar to the centralized kitchens through private institutions and NGO’s in

urban areas of Karnataka, the concept of community kitchens can be applied in

rural areas. The self-help group or parents group within the community can be

engaged in procuring, preparing as well as serving MDMs to the children. They

can be given responsibility to purchase food grains as well as vegetables from

local farms, cook the meals and supply it to the schools. In one terms it will

reduce the workload for the government officers as well as school teachers and

staffs and in other terms it will help to contribute in improving the overall

economy of the local community.

Through the concept of community kitchens, whatever food grains that is grown

locally can be utilized by the community through directly purchasing them from

farms which are healthier as well with reasonable prices. The farmers don’t need

to rush to the markets for selling their products which will also help to save

transportation costs, commission to middlemen and get the fair price for their

crops and vegetables. Likewise it adds value to the entire chain through timely

delivery of food grains, very less or no requirement for storage, reducing costs

for the government as well as improving the quality of meals that is the ultimate

objective of the MDMS.

62

- Kitchen garden at school

Almost in all schools there was found a serious grievances from cooks regarding

their low salary besides working from 9 am to 3 pm every day. As cooks are the

most important actors in the value chain who must be satisfied in order to

produce the quality results there must be a grievances redress mechanisms for the

ground level workers like cooks.

For this issue there can be a value added option like vegetable gardening at

schools ground. Through the field visits to rural schools it was observed that

almost all the schools have big playgrounds and some portion of extra land.

Those lands are not being utilized and used for any other purpose. So why not

making use of those available spaces for the cultivation of vegetables within

schools? The cooks can be assigned for taking care of the garden. Their salary

can be raised up to the per day minimum standard level wage for the employees

with the additional hours of work time along with additional responsibility of

looking after the vegetable garden.

This will help to solve the problem of low salary with cooks in one side and at

the same time will reduce the costs spent upon the vegetable purchase from the

local market on day to day basis. The money that is saved from the vegetables

and spices can be spent for paying salary to the cooks which in turn motivate

them for the quality performance, help to improve their economy, provide fresh

and local vegetables to children and save their time that they have to spent for

going to market and buy the vegetables.

In addition to this the concept of environment and agricultural education can be

introduced at schools level by involving school children once a week or once in

every 15 days for sowing, watering, gardening or plucking the vegetables from

the garden. This will help the children to realize the importance of locally grown

foods and vegetables for maintaining good health. Also they can make their

parents realize about the benefits of having vegetable garden at their house even

within small piece of land. This would be the value added as well as long term

sustainable solution to overcome the problem of food insecurity from family and

household level.

63

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66

ANNEXURE

Annexure A.1: Details of resource persons for KII throughout the research

process.

Name Descriptio Description

Mr Jai Prakash Member of the state consultative committee of

the Food corporation of India. He is also a

retired officer from the Food corporation of

India (Andra Pradesh)

Mr. Vajramuni A senior level high-school teacher at one of the

school of Ramnagara district. He is also

working with an NGO called spandana as a

part-time advisor on their project regarding

MDMS and the union of MDM cooks. He is

fighting for the rights of cooks at school for

MDMS for last 5 years.

B. Thammaiah Education officer (AksharaDasoha) at the

Mandya district of Karnataka.

ManjuNathGowda Gram Panchayat- Head member at Pavgadataluk

of Tumkur district

67

Annexure A.2: Details of questionnaire for semi-structured interview

Thank you in advance for completing this questionnaire. This is a part of my

academic requirement of M.A. in Sustainable Development Practice at TERI

University, New Delhi as a major project. My research area is “Value Chain

Analysis of Mid-day meal scheme in Karnataka”. In this regard, I need your

cooperation to complete this questionnaire. It should take no longer than 30

minutes. All the information gathered will be used solely for research only and not

for any other purpose.

Your cooperation is appreciated.

Date: Conducted by:

Name:

Position:

District:

Taluk:

Schools (cooks and Headmaster)

- Where does the school get food grains from? What procedures does it

need to go through in order to receive the food grains?

- What sorts of food grains do you get for school? Do you receive them on

time?

- Where do you get the other ingredients from (like vegetables)? Who and

how the funds are utilized? Who provides fund for that?

- What is the source of water used for cooking? Where does the school get it

from?

- Where do you get other food items like Daal/wheat/oil/spices etc for

school? How do you ensure the availability of such food items?

- Is there storage house in school? If yes what is the capacity to store? What

is the condition of storage in overall? If not why there is no storage in

school? How does the school manage with the grains? Where do you store

other food items like daal/wheat/oil/spices etc?

- How many staffs are there in kitchen? Who manage the tasks of preparing

food in school?

- Is the quality of food as prescribed by the government at the school level?

If yes how? If no why?

- What is the quantity of food supplied per children? Is it sufficient for them?

- How much food wastes occurred in school? Who is responsible for such

losses? Are there any mechanisms to prevent such losses?

- What is the condition of sanitation in the school? How hygienic is the food

that is served to the children?

68

- What is the mechanisms of monitoring and evaluation of MDM within

schools? How frequently the monitoring and evaluation takes place?

- Is the school committee satisfied with the quantity and quality of food

grains received as a MDM?

- Are the parents committee and students satisfied with the quality of

MDMs?

- What is the role of community members in ensuring MDM to children?

- Who do the school report if it finds any problem regarding food grains and

other materials at schools?

- How is the response from the higher level authority? Do they take action

on time?

- What do you think that needs to be done in order to improve the

transparent and regular flow of food grains and other ingredients for MDM

in schools?

Self-help groups/Panchayats

- What is your role with MDM scheme at schools?

- How often you monitor/check /supervise the food grains and other

ingredients availability in schools?

- Are there any committees under panchayat/self-help groups to monitor

this program?

- How often the food grains supplied to schools? Do the suppliers supply

them on time?

- Are there any difficulties in receiving food grains/daal/oil/water in time?

- How is your relation with the school committee regarding the food grains

supplies, storage and cooking activities?

- Whom do you report if you find any problem regarding MDM at schools?

- How is the response from the higher level authority? Do they take action

on time?

- What do you think that needs to be done in order to improve the

transparent and regular flow of food grains and other ingredients for MDM

in schools?

District level Panchayats/ZillaPanchayats

- What is your role in entire MDM scheme?

- How do you ensure food grains to the schools? Where do you get it from?

- How do you ensure other food items like daal/oil/salt/

- What are the procedures for hiring the contractors? How many contractors

are there for this district?

- How do you supervise and inspect the quality of food grains?

Contractors for transportation

69

- How many contractors are hired to transport the grain from storage to

schools/NGOs?

- What is the procedure for hiring them?

- How long does it take to transport grains from storage to the

schools/NGOs? Do they supply the grains on time?

- Which mode of transportation is used by contractors (? How efficient is the

mode?

- Who monitors/ controls the contractors?

- How long (in average) do they (contractors) take to transport grains?

- Is there loss of grains in transit? How much is the loss? What is the cause?

- What is the quantity and quality of food grains while loading to the vehicle

and while loading off from the vehicles?

- Who is responsible for the losses occurred in the transit?

- How satisfied are the samvedak with the FCI?

Transporters/ Drivers:

- What is the average quantity of food grains while loading to the vehicle

and while loading off the vehicle/transport? (How much losses occurred in

transportation of food grains?)

- How much cost is occurred for per kg of grain in transportation from farms

to FCI depo?

- Which mode of transportation is used in moving grains from storage to the

district …

- How much loss occurred in transportation? Who is responsible for taking

care of grains in transit?

- What are the factors contributing to the transit losses?

- Is there a container system or food grains are loaded directly into the

vehicle?

- How much time is taken in transportation?

Storage:

- How many storage depots are there in states Karnataka? How much is the

capacity of storage?

- What is the condition of storage? Is there any problem underlying in the

storehouse?

- What is the capacity of storage? Is there buffer stock? If yes how much

/why? If not how much shortage and why?

- How much is the loss from buffer stock/under stock?

- Can’t we reduce the buffer stock / shortage and reduce the costs?

- How long is the food grains stored in the storage?

70

- Is there any loss of food grains in storage? What are the factors

contributing to the storage loss?

- What are the technologies used in storage house?

- What is the mechanism to deal with the leakages?

- How many workers are there in storage? Are they more or less as per the

requirement of work?

- Who monitors and evaluates the activities of storage house and the

workers?

- How is the quality of food grains at the beginning and at the time of

loading from the storage? Does it meet the quality set up by the

government?

- What is the quantity of food at the beginning and at the time of loading

from the storage house?

State Civil Supplies Corporation

- What is the role of SCSC in MDM scheme procurement and allotment of

grains? What are the procedures for collecting and distributing food

grains? All process taking place in SCSC regarding MDM scheme.

- What isTaluk Agricultural Produce Co-operative Marketing Society? What is

their role in this MDM scheme food supply?

- What varieties of food are supplied by SCSC? How the transportation is

selected?

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Annexure A.3:

List of schools, school days and school children proposed and approved for

MDMS in 2014-15

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Source: MDM Program Plan and Budget 2014-15

73

Annexure A.4: Value Chain Analysis Map of MDMS in Karnataka

Key Performance

Indicators

for

each part

of

the

process