Why should school headmasters bear burden of noon meal prog, asks Kerala HC

Kochi, Oct 16 : The Kerala High Court on Monday held that if the noon meal programme in government-run schools is a collaboration between the Centre and the state, why are the headmasters bearing its burden.

The observation came in response to a plea filed by a leading organisation of the teachers who approached the Court seeking its intervention in the matter.

Notably, with the state government reeling under a massive cash crunch leading to around Rs 163 crore arrears pending, numerous government school heads are forced to bear the expense of the noon meal programme.

When the counsel for the state government informed that the funds from the Centre are not coming on time, the Court said "if that be the case, then remove the name of the Centre from the name of the programme and name it as the Chief Ministers scheme.

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For long, this has been a major problem for the headmasters/ headmistresses of the state government schools as due to the huge delay in the funds from the state government to arrive in schools, in order for the school children to get the noon meal, the onus was on the teachers and they used to fund it from their pocket.

While the teachers were finding it too difficult to foot the expenses from their pockets, this became a big issue and a leading organisation of the teachers approached the Court seeking their intervention.

The Counsel for the state government has informed the Court that steps have now been taken to distribute Rs 81 crore shortly to the schools.

The case has been posted for further hearing on Wednesday.

sg/shb