Hyderabad, May 02: Chief minister K Rosaiah has directed the secondary education department to clear the bills of mid-day meal programme every month punctually so that the caterers can be held responsible for any lapses.
Rosaiah today held a review meeting with minister D Manikya Varaprasad and officials of the department.
The chief minister categorically stated that bills should not be kept in pending so that the caterers might take it as an excuse for their errors.
The minister said that in the state about 74 lakh school-going children were benefiting from the scheme which was costing the government Rs 1,700 crore a year and as on date there were no bills pending.
Reviewing the other programmes Rosaiah asked the school education, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and other departments concerned to work in close coordination to access and utilise maximum funds from SSA.
“I am really concerned about this. When such huge funds are available for the State from the SSA, why can we not access them? Why are we failing to get the funds? Why is there no proper coordination among the departments? I want this to be solved immediately. I want all the departments concerned to work in concert and get the maximum funds available under SSA for our schools.’’ Rosaiah directed that all the textbooks should be available on the day of reopening of the schools. He was informed that textbooks were getting ready and 75 per cent of them had already been printed.
The chief minister expressed about the high rate of school drop-outs.
–Agencies