PAISA District Surveys Mid Day Meals (2012)

Provisional

Yamini Aiyar, Sr. Research Fellow, CPR

Introduction to PAISA District Surveys

Why PAISA ? Current Budget for MDM Rs. 11,937

crore: • How does this money flow to

schools and districts?• Do schools receive this money?• Is this adequate to ensure that

meals provided in schools meet the norms?

Coverage•4 Districts in 2 States Uttar Pradesh: Hardoi and JaunpurBihar: Nalanda and Purnea•Schools: 110-115 (average) per district

Who Does PAISA ?

•Local NGOs, universities, college students in each district

Methodology• Analysis of GOI PAB minutes, State

Quarterly Progress Reports and Sanction Orders

• Analysis of district Sanction Orders, Utilization Certificates, Monthly and Quarterly Progress Reports, Release Orders, Audit Reports

• School level surveys (passbooks, cashbooks, vouchers)

Budget line items analyzed

• Food grains

• Cooking cost (CC)

• Cook cum helper (CCH)

• Management, Monitoring and Evaluation (MME)

Findings

Humara hard-drive 6 mahiney pehle crash ho gaya.

Humare paas soft copy nahi hai. Agar aap ko copy chahiye, toh yahaan aa ke le lijiye.

Ek computer operator purey district ka data ikatrit karta hai, kabhi kabhi khaana khane ke liye samay bhi nahi milta.

Quality of record keeping a serious concern: Voices from the district

Of the day spent in the MDM district office, the official spent the entire morning trying to turn on the computer and then watching the computer crash. This went on till afternoon, after which the said official left.

The only other computer that worked had a virus, and was very slow.

- Field observation by AI Team

Quality of record keeping a serious concern: Notes from the district

Quality of record keeping a serious concern: A flavour of the problem

MPRs and QPRs incomplete, in one district they were not even prepared

Utilization Certificates not available in BiharAudit reports for 2011-12 not available

anywhereSanction Orders in one district were only kept

as unsigned soft copies IVRS data not available as officers did not

have appropriate passwords

Stock register chori ho jaaney ke kaaran upyog mein laaya gaya chaawal evam prapt chawal ki jaankaari nahin prapt hui.

Quality of record keeping a serious concern: Voices from Schools

Parivartan lagat register maintain na hone ke kaaran incharge shikshak ne MDM register nahi dekhaya.

Documents in schools

Availability at the School level

Hardoi Jaunpur Nalanda Purnea

MDM Register

Not available in 7% cases. No data on opening balance.

Not available in 7.3% cases. No data on opening balance

Not available in 14% of cases.

Not available in 1% of cases

PassbooksNot available in 12% of cases

Not available in 15% of cases

Not available in 16% of cases

Not available in 11% of cases

Cashbook Available AvailableAvailable but poorly maintained

Available but poorly maintained

Quality of record keeping a serious concern: School

When do districts receive and release foodgrains and cooking costs?

Even flow of foodgrains and cooking cost from GOI to States

Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh

Just under 50% food grains released by Hardoi till October 2011

No funds released by Hardoi for cooking costs till September 2011

No funds released by Hardoi for cooking costs till September 2011

Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh

Even flow of foodgrains from Jaunpur to blocks and schools

Only 15% cooking costs released in and by December 2011

Nalanda, Bihar

Even flow of food grains from district to block and schools

Slow start in cooking cost releases by Nalanda

Purnea, Bihar

Even flow of food grains from district to block and schools

More than half the year’s cooking cost is released by November

Summary

Relatively smooth grain and cooking cost fund flow from State governments to districts

Hardoi and Jaunpur data seems to indicate that there are many bottlenecks at the district level in releasing cooking cost fund flows on time

Nalanda and Purnea seem to perform far better at the district level in terms of grain and cooking cost fund flow

When do schools in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar receive their food grains and cooking costs?

MDM performance at the school level FY 2011-12

District% students eating in a day/enrolled

children

% students’ attendance

on day of survey

Hardoi 62 48

Jaunpur 65 47

Nalanda 62 52

Purnea 63 43

District 

Total working days in 2011-12

Average days on which MDM

was served

Hardoi 223 218

Jaunpur 219 210

Nalanda 232 163

Purnea 239 169

Number of meals served/ enrollment and attendance

Number of working days on which MDM is served

Percentage of schools serving MDM on at least one day every month

DistrictPercentage of schools serving MDM on at least one day every working month

Hardoi 100%

Jaunpur 96%

Nalanda 42%

Purnea 25%

Barsaat ke mausam mein MDM kabhi kabhi nahi aata hai, kachhi sadak ke kaaran

- School observation

Significant gap between availability of grain and total grain required in some months: Nalanda

Requirement = No. of meals per day*no. of working days*norm

Available grain= Opening balance in the financial quarter+ receipts

% of schools below requirement

Significant gap between availability of grain and total grain required in some schools: Purnea

Requirement = No. of meals per day*no. of working days*norm

Available grain= Opening balance in the quarter + receipts in the quarter

Are meals served according to norms?

Significant gap between expected consumption by norm and actual consumption : UP

Food grain consumption pattern in MPR in accordance with norms

Cooking cost consumption pattern in MPR in accordance with norms

Consumption in Bihar: A mixed picture

Food grain consumption pattern in MPR in accordance with norms

Cooking cost consumption pattern in MPR in accordance with norms

Actual consumption Vs consumption based on attendance: Bihar

Actual consumption Vs consumption based on attendance: Bihar

Summary

MDM performance is variable across districts. Significant gap between working days and days on which meals are served in Bihar

Wide variations in timing of grain receipt in schools. Particularly in some months

In UP, grains and cooking costs received per child is on average below the norm

In Bihar grain and cooking cost receipt is above the norm but this is offset by the fact that meals are not served through the year

Overall consumption patterns are variable. Many schools report a wide gap between actual grains and cooking cost utilized and norm

When do districts receive and release funds for paying the Cook cum Helper (CCH)?

Funds release pattern (GOI and State) for CCH is erratic

Funds release from Hardoi district to schools is even through the year

Fund release from Purnea to schools is extremely slow

When does the CCH receive her payment?

88% CCH in Hardoi are paid within 3 months. 56% in Jaunpur

59% CCH receive their salary once in 6 months in Nalanda and 38% in Purnea

How do Management, Monitoring and Evaluation funds flow?

Hardoi’s receipt of MME went from 0 to 100% between October and December 2011 according to district MPRs

65 percent of funds for MME were not released until December 2011 in Nalanda and Purnea

The way forward

Significant investments need to be made in improving accounting practices and record keeping (including IVRS)

Financial management training and capacity building at the district and school level

Designing an end to end MIS system (links with 13 FC efforts with Panchayat FMS)

Making IVRS publically accessible Improved monitoringStrengthen staffing capacity

Documents a district ought to

haveAvailability in Hardoi Availability in Jaunpur

Sanction Orders (State to district)

Available Available

District Monthly Progress Reports

(MPR)

Available, but incomplete. MPRs do not contain data for Cook-cum-

Helper (CCH)

Available, but incomplete. Only from April -Dec 2011.

MPRs for April & May 2011 did not have data on CCH, as hard drive crashed.

District office could not locate hard copiesDistrict Quarterly Progress Reports

(QPR)Available

Only for Quarter 1 as hard drive crashed. District office could not locate hard copies

Utilization Certificates (UC)

Available Available

Release Orders from District to FCI

Available Not available

IVRS data Information not provided. Invalid password

Not available

MDM Audit report Does not exist Does not exist

Sanction Orders from District to

block/school

Soft copies unavailable. Data overwritten

Information was not provided

Quality of record keeping a serious concern: District, Uttar Pradesh

Quality of record keeping a serious concern: District, Bihar

Documents a district ought to

haveAvailability in Nalanda Availability in Purnea

Sanction orders from State to

districtAvailable Available

District Monthly Progress Reports

(MPR)

Monthly Financial Progress Reports that do not have coverage & food

grain data

Accessed reports from monthly meetings with District Magistrate. Only summary

reports available for September – November 2011 and February-March 2012.

Data for several months is repeated and tables in several months are for months

other than those under consideration

District Quarterly Progress Reports

(QPR)Available Available

Utilization Certificates (UC)

Not available Not available

IVRS data Not available Not available

Quality of record keeping a serious concern: District, Bihar (continued)

Documents a district ought to have

Availability in Nalanda Availability in Purnea

MDM Audit report Does not exist Does not exist

Sanction Orders for cooking costs

Unsigned soft copies made available for CC, without dates or letter

numbers. Un-collated lists of releases to schools various blocks provided. These didn’t cover total releases for

the year

Available

Sanction Orders for foodgrains from

District to block/schoolAvailable Available

CashbookUsed as source for releases of CC from district to schools. Poorly

maintained MME data also obtained

MME data obtained for cashbook for 2011-12

Documents a school ought to

have

Availability Hardoi

Availability Jaunpur

Availability Nalanda

Availability Purnea

MDM Register

Not available in 7% cases.

The MDM register did not contain data on opening

balance.

Not available in 7.3% cases. The

MDM register did not contain data on

opening balance

Not available in 14% of cases.

Not available in 1% of cases

Passbooks Not available in 12% of cases

Not available in 15% of cases

Not available in 16% of cases

Not available in 11% of cases

Cashbook Available Available. Available but poorly maintained

Available but poorly maintained

Quality of record keeping a serious concern: schools