Many students are starving in almost 4,000 madrasas of Madhya Pradesh as only half of them get mid-day meals.
There are 1 lakh madrasa students in Madhya Pradesh who are not being served mid-day meals.
Madhya Pradesh has over 4,000 madrasas with over 2 lakh students and only half of them get mid-day meals.
"We do not get the mid-day meal. Our caretaker has to beg for donations and than we are served food," says a student, Azim.
"They keep on repeating that we will get the mid-day meal every day but we don’t really get it and we eat out of the donations that the caretaker collects," says another student Kamil.
Madrasas have been promised mid-day meals and uniforms by Madhya Pradesh government.
But the promises remain on paper only.
Surprisingly, the Madrasa Board is not being of any help in this matter. In fact, it says that the madrasas have faked the number of students and that’s why the funds have not been released.
"The government wants to give mid-day meals to everyone including the madarsa students but there are problems like exact information of madarsas," claims MP Madarsa Board Chairperson Mohammed Gani Ansari.
The Centre had extended the mid-day meal to madarsas more than six months back but several students in madrasas across Madhya are still going hungry even as schemes like mid-day meals have been found to reduce dropout rates.