Gujarat High Court Dismisses Plea Against Outsourcing Work & Administration Of 'Mid Day Meal' Scheme

The Gujarat High Court recently dismissed a petition against outsourcing the work and administration of the Mid Day Meal Scheme to private players.A single bench of Justice Biren Vaishnav observed that the objective of Resolution dated 09.11.1984, which first introduced the concept of Mid Day Meal Schemes in the schools run under the State Primary Schools, was to provide nutritional support to students of the primary stage in villages and in areas of Municipal Corporations. At that point, the government was considering a proposal to hand over the implementation of the Scheme to Non Government Organizations on pilot basis. On 01.08.2016, the State came out with another document indicating that the implementation of the Mid Day Meals Scheme had to be given to the NGOs.In this backdrop the Court held,"Mid Day Meal Scheme was conceived as a beneficial scheme essentially with a view to encourage nutritional and educational facilities for promoting literacy and welfare of the children. In implementing such Scheme, naturally a setup was to be in place and looking to the enormity and the responsibility foisted on the State, the resolution encouraged participation of private players in the field as is evident from reading the resolution."The Bench said it is true that in the administrative setup, it was necessary for the State in the inception and the youth of its Scheme to take up the responsibility of engaging the helpers, cooks and organizers. However, the subsequent schemes of the year 2006 and 2016 envisaged outsourcing of these engagements for setting up of centralized kitchen and for entering into MOUs and engaging civil society organizations and NGOs.The Petitioner is a registered association working as Organizer under the Mid Day Meal Scheme on an honorarium basis. It challenged the outsourcing work given to one Stri Shakti Sansthan, Ahmedabad with an apprehension that there will be displacement of the existing setup of personnel engaged on honorary basis. It relied on the model terms of the tender which provided that the NGOs have to ensure that the cook-cum-helpers already engaged in the schools are not displaced. It was their argument that they had been working several years and carrying out their duties and therefore, they could not be displaced from this engagement. Per contra, the AGP pleaded that the Scheme was envisaged for encouraging children to attend schools and not to foster employment opportunities. The process of engaging services of contractors was not 'new or foreign' to foster the Scheme. The tender process was initiated and awarded to Stri Shakti Sanstha, a civil society organisation, in consonance with the 2016 policy of the Government and sufficient care was taken to not disturb the service conditions of the workers. Noting these contentions, Justice Biren Vaishnav opined: "The concept was introduced with twin aim of encouraging education and nutrition. For the purposes of implementation of the Scheme, the resolution of 1984 provided that the entire expense for implementing the project would be undertaken by the State, however, the participation of local bodies, voluntary organizations and private organizations will be welcomed." The High Court also referred to the Division Bench judgement in SCA No. 19912 of 2015 to conclude that tenders are invited from all eligible contractors with an amount fixed per child. Therefore, this concept was not 'foreign' to the Scheme as was evident from State Government's Resolution 2006 which established nutritional support to the students as its main goal. The State in 2016 had resolved to invite NGOs to implement the scheme and engage adequate number of organisers, cooks and helpers with full efforts to retain them. Keeping in view the objectives and the processes in implementing the Scheme, the Bench concluded that the primary goal was to provide nutritional and educational facilities to children with participation from private players. Since the Petitioners were ad-honorarium workers, they could not seek regularisation as per the Uma Devi case where the sweeper engaged with the State was regularised. Case No.: C/SCA/6538/2022 Case Title: MADYAHAN BHOJAN YOJNA KARMACHARI SANGH v/s STATE OF GUJARATCitation: 2022 LiveLaw (Guj) 283 Click Here To Read/Download Order

Gujarat High Court Dismisses Plea Against Outsourcing Work & Administration Of 'Mid Day Meal' Scheme

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The scheme is aimed at providing nutritional support to children with participation from private players & NGOs.

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