Menu, rich and precise, for rural job meet

Menu, rich and precise, for rural job meet

Thoughts with poor, thoughtful on food

Architects of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme will be gratified to know that the blockbuster programme is putting food o the table in Bengal.

Sample the menu: baby corn tossed salad, aloo pineapple salad, chicken butter masala, fish Irani kebab (dry), butter naan, aloo meth masala, yellow methi dal and chocolate mousse.

Sample the event: a twoday workshop of 130-plus officials and panchayat representatives on the job scheme. Officials taking part in such workshops are not expected to run on empty stomach, though the food bill (Rs 1.79 lakh) is certain to raise some eyebrows, especially since the purported beneficiaries at the end of the chain are paid only Rs 100 each a day for their labour.

But a note attributed to a rural developm ent czar offers a fascinating -and fastidious, if the eye for detail is given due credit -picture of how a bureaucracy that is often labelled insensitive functions when it comes to food.

The note -"copy forwarded for favour of information and necessary action to" as many as six officials in various state government departments -also tries to live up to the standards pursued by the followers of Sir Humphrey Appleby , the permanent secretary in Yes, Minister.

The "food arrangements" for the workshop held last week at Stadel, the hotel in Salt Lake stadium, literally take the cake for precision planning -something usually not in evidence when the Bengal government tackles graver affairs.

After the multiple-course meal (see chart), the note takes care to remind the recipient (a Stadel official) that "2 times tea and coffee with assorted biscuits to be served as complementary". The main meal cost Rs 517.50 a plate (Rs 460 plus 12.5 per cent tax per head). In keeping with the egalitarian spirit of the scheme and the government of the day, item number eight on the note adds: “100 food parcels for the drivers and securities on 23rd and 24th April 2010, the parcels should contain: Peas Pulao, Chicken Curry, Mix Veg, Yellow Dal, Hot Gulab Jamun”. The bill for this: Rs 225 a parcel (Rs 200 plus 12.5 per cent tax).

The note is attributed to R.K. Maiti, special secretary in the panchayat and rural development department in the Bengal government. He is also the additional chief executive officer of WBSRDA (the West Bengal State Rural Development Agency).

Alas! The special secretary’s culinary drafting skills do not appear to have won too many admirers in the dour corridors of power.

“When the order was issued, I was in Delhi and hence was not aware of it. It is indeed a childish order and dilutes the very importance of the two-day workshop that we had,” said M.N. Roy, principal secretary, panchayat and rural development.

“Participants in a workshop need to be served with lunch but there is no doubt that such a frivolous order on what is going to be served shouldn’t have happened,” Roy added.

Roy’s personal assistant was among the six who received a copy of the note with the diligent entry: “For favour of information with

reference to the telephonic discussion held on 15th and 16th April 2010.” Maiti could not be contacted.

The meeting and the expenses did not flout any rules. The note mentioned that the bill for the workshop would be paid out of the MGNREGS contingency fund, which the state government can use for meeting administrative expenses like purchasing furniture, conveyance of local office bearers and monthly meeting expenses.

Roy pointed out that the workshop did tuck into weighty matters. “We deliberated on our achievements over the past one year and the shortcomings that need to be taken care of to cover more people under the scheme,” the principal secretary said.

Not all will agree on the scale of the “achievements”.

Against the national average of 40 days of average employment in 2008-09, about 72 per cent of eligible households in Bengal did not get even 15 days of employment a year.

The scheme has provided employment to only around 34 lakh households in Bengal, which is way behind others like Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in terms of number of persondays, work completed and expenditure. But the Centre did acknowledge recently the turnaround in two districts — North 24-Parganas and Burdwan — in terms of implementation.