The Bumthang Dzongkhag Tsogdu (DT) has proposed the Finance Ministry an additional budget of Nu 10 M. DT members said the budget is required at the earliest to build infrastructure in schools to facilitate the Free Nutritious Lunch Programme in primary schools, which will begin by August this year.
During the recent DT, members expressed that some schools lack basic infrastructure such as kitchen and dining halls to cater free lunch for the students.
Out of the 18 government schools in Bumthang, 8 schools have been identified to receive the free nutritious lunch programme in the upcoming financial year. Students in another 4 schools started receiving free lunch since last year. The remaining schools are either central schools or boarding schools, which already have free meal provisions. However, the newly identified schools either lack store and kitchen or dining facilities. Some schools don’t have any of the facilities altogether. Few schools have been given a budget to carry out the construction works. Gups who are required to put all the amenities in place say they do not have enough budget to do so.
“As the Free Nutritious Lunch Programme was not budgeted in the 12th Five Year Plan, gewog offices don’t have enough budget to build required structures such as dining hall, kitchen and storeroom to make the initiative happen. That’s why we have raised this concern in the DT. As per the engineer’s estimate, we require a minimum of Nu 1.1 M to build all those facilities in one school. I have 2 schools in my gewog which don’t have any of the required facilities, so we would at least need Nu 2 M,” said Ugyen Nima, the Tang Gup in Bumthang.
“As we don’t have any additional budget from the government for the programme and that we are tasked to carry out the infrastructure building works, it would be difficult for us to materialise it. Though the government has given an adequate budget to the gewog offices, we have already allocated the amount for various developmental works and other activities. That’s why my gewog proposed it as one of the agendas for the DT,” shared Pema Doengyel, the Chhoekhor Gup.
“We have to build the infrastructures in 2 schools in Chhumig Gewog, another 3 schools in Tang Gewog and about 3 other schools in Tang Gewog. In total, we will have to ready the facilities in 8 primary schools, which would require at least Nu 10 M. This will enable all the students to get free meals from the schools in a fair manner. So we have included a supplementary budget of Nu 10 M in the current budgetary report,” added Jampel, the Bumthang DT Chairperson.
Only Wangdicholing Lower Secondary School and Gangrithang Primary School, which are under urban areas, are not identified for the free lunch programme as of now.
The Free Nutritious Lunch Programme is one of the 25 pledges the government promised to fulfil within the first 120 days since taking office. Though the programme is not fully implemented in the schools yet, the government labelled the pledge as being ‘Achieved’ as it completed its 120 days in office in March, last year.
As of now, the government is beginning the free lunch programme in identified schools across the country and there are plans to extend the programme in other schools in urban centres in the future.
Kipchu
