CABINET GIVES CHILDREN DIWALI GIFT BY DIRECTING HOT COOKED FOOD

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Death_knell_for_ready-to-eat_scheme/articleshow/3641723.cms
Death knell for Renuka's ready-to-eat scheme?26 Oct 2008, 0350 hrs IST, Nitin Sethi, TNN
NEW DELHI: Renuka Chowdhury's belligerence seems to have been lost on herCabinet colleagues. Despite a very strong pitch by the women and child
development (WCD) minister, the Cabinet has decided that hot cooked mealswould be served all over the country in the next two years under theIntegrated Child Development Service scheme.
It emerges from the Cabinet note that the GOM set up on ICDS, which TOI hadreported on earlier, is only to recommend measures for expediting the switchover to hot-cooked meals in states where this is not already being done.
In what is being interpreted as a further rebuff to the WCD minister, thepanchayati raj ministry would now be associated in implementing the scheme.Mani Shankar Aiyar, minister for Panchayati Raj had pointed out that theConstitution demanded a greater role of panchayti raj institutions in ICDSbut WCD ministry ignored the suggestions.
Instead, the WCD ministry had remained firm on its backing for ready-to-eatmeals in the face of opposition from the planning commission, the financeministry and even the PMO. While some had warned that it would lead tocentralization and consequently corruption, others had also warned that itwould be a direct threat to the health of eight crore poor children.
The Supreme Court-appointed food commissioners too wrote to the WCD ministrywarning it not to go ahead with the proposal in the face of apex courtorders requiring that middlemen and contractors of any kind not be used inproviding food under government schemes.
But the WCD ministry lobbied in favour of packaged food at the review of itsICDS revamp proposal with the finance ministry. As a consequence, thefinance ministry diluted its original vehement opposition to Chowdhury's petproject, instead suggesting that hot-cooked meals could be served if thestates so agreed.