Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Performance Audit of Mid Day Meal Scheme
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India in this report highlighted gross irregularities in implementation of the midday meal (MDM) scheme. The states were fudging numbers to claim more funds for procuring foodgrains revealed the report presented in Parliament on Dec 18, 2015 .
Despite the existence of the Mid Day Meal Scheme over two decades and initiatives of the government in making several improvements in the contents of the scheme over the years, the actual implementation of the scheme suffers from various shortcomings and lapses across the board. The last performance audit of the scheme undertaken during 2007 -08 raised many red flags such as over-reporting of enrolment figures, cases of leakages, financial indiscipline, poor quality of meals and inadequate monitoring etc., which still persist. The Report contains significant results of the performance audit on the implementation of the Mid Day Meal Scheme in 27 states (except Mizoram ) and seven UTs, where the scheme was under operation. The instances mentioned in this Report are those which came to notice in the course of test audit for the period from 2009-10 to 2013-14 in the Ministry of Human Resource Development, State/District Nodal Departments and Primary/ Upper Primary Schools/Centres.