Digital Goa, June 16 – Education Dept has clarified that tender floated for supplying mid-day meals is limited only to 5,000 of the 1.63 lakh student beneficiaries. Self Help Groups(SHG) had difficulty in supplying meals to these 5,000 students, so the dept floated this tender, claimed Director of Education Shailesh Zingde. He went on to add that mid-day meals will be provided to rest of the students through 8 PTAs and 98 odd Self Help Groups(SHG). “We are not going to replace SHGs with NGOs,” he asserted but went on to caution that it will not take too long for 5,000 to turn into 25,000 if their service is good enough. Bids have been received from Goa, Karnataka, Gaziyabad and Mumbai, he informed. Zingde said that pending bills of 100 odd SHGs amounting to Rs 13 crore will be cleared by next week or two as state govt has already sanctioned the amount. He said the order of preference for giving Mid-day meals to students will be PTAs, SHGs, dry ration or NGOs.
