Plan to remove middleman in purchase of potatoes

Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, July 23

With considerable hike in the price of potatoes, the Education Department has decided to purchase these at the wholesale price from the centre concerned to ensure their low-cost usage in the mid-day meal.

A letter from the DGSE has advised the DEOs to depute Deputy DEOs for the job on a biweekly basis to ensure that cooking costs for the mid-day meal are brought down.

The costs for the transportation of the potatoes thus procured — from mandis to schools — shall be cut from the per day cooking costs of potatoes.

The letter issued to all DEOs in this regard states that while every week, potatoes are used three to four days in the mid-day meal, like other vegetables, potato prices also keep rising and falling. As per the mid-day meal norms, the potato prices for primary classes is Rs 4.13 and for upper primary classes, it is Rs 6.18 per day, per child, as cooking cost for the mid-day meal.

Due to the considerable rise in the price of potatoes, schools face difficulty in preparing the mid-day meal. Barring this, in most schools, potatoes are bought from grocery shops which are priced considerably higher than wholesale rates. The Education Department feels that if a potato is bought from the centre at wholesale prices, it can further be disbursed in schools at lower rates.

Keeping this in mind, schools have been directed that potatoes should be bought from nearby mandis at the wholesale rate as per the need of the coming two weeks and arrangements be made to bring these in schools. The same process may be repeated every two weeks as per the needs of the respective schools.

Deputy DEOs have been recruited as nodal officers to complete this task. All expenditures on the purchase as well as transportation of potatoes shall be cut from the per student cooking costs allocated to schools.

Jalandhar DEO (S) Neelam Kumari, said, “We have received the notification, but it is not yet clear exactly what the disbursal process shall be. We shall be holding a meeting of the Education Department and the Deputy DEOs in this regard tomorrow in which it shall be ascertained whether the Deputy DEOs shall themselves go to mandis or other staff shall be deputed to do so.”