Twelve Hundred Kilos of Rice and Twenty Working Days
Rajkiya Uchch Vidyalaya, Begusarai, has 480 children in Classes VI–VIII, 160 in each class. Average daily attendance last month: Class VI 90%, Class VII 85%, Class VIII 80%. The school serves the midday meal at the upper-primary norm of 150 g of raw rice per child per day. On 1 November the store held 1,200 kg of rice, and the school will work 20 days in November, with no further receipts expected before 30 November. The cook argues that at 150 g the stock will run out before the month ends, and proposes serving 120 g for the whole month: 'the children will not notice and nobody weighs the rice.' The head teacher wants the arithmetic on the table before agreeing to anything. The block office holds a buffer stock that schools may draw on only against a written request. The stock and consumption registers are maintained daily and are subject to social audit.
1. Work out the daily and monthly requirement on both possible bases - enrolled strength and actual attendance - and state whether 1,200 kg lasts 20 days.
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Attendance first, because meals are served to children present, not to names on the roll.
- Class VI: 160 × 0.90 = 144
- Class VII: 160 × 0.85 = 136
- Class VIII: 160 × 0.80 = 128
- Total present on an average day = 144 + 136 + 128 = 408 children
On the attendance basis: 408 × 0.150 kg = 61.2 kg per day; for 20 days, 61.2 × 20 = 1,224 kg. The store has 1,200 kg, so the shortfall is 24 kg - one day's shortfall is not what the cook is describing.
How far the stock actually goes: 1,200 ÷ 61.2 = 19.6 days. Concretely, 19 days consume 1,162.8 kg, leaving 37.2 kg for day 20 against a need of 61.2 kg - a gap of 24 kg on the last day only.
On the enrolled-strength basis: 480 × 0.150 = 72 kg per day, 1,440 kg for the month, a shortfall of 240 kg. This figure is the one to use for the indent, since the store must be able to serve every child on a full-attendance day; but it is not the figure that governs whether the month is covered.
So the honest answer to the head teacher is: the stock covers 19 of 20 days at the norm, and the shortfall is 24 kg, not the crisis the cook describes.
2. Evaluate the cook's 120 g proposal quantitatively and administratively. Should the head teacher accept it?
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The arithmetic works. 408 × 0.120 kg = 48.96 kg per day; × 20 = 979.2 kg, comfortably inside 1,200 kg, leaving a surplus of about 221 kg. That surplus is precisely why the proposal is suspicious: the school would be under-serving children while sitting on stock.
The nutritional cost is real. Rice at roughly 345 kcal per 100 g means 30 g less delivers about 104 kcal less per child per day - of an upper-primary meal norm of 700 kcal, that is a cut of around 15%, before counting the loss of the accompanying dal and vegetables that the rice helps deliver.
The compliance cost is larger than the arithmetic saving. The shortfall being averted is 24 kg, roughly ₹1,000–1,500 worth of rice. Against that, the registers are maintained daily and open to social audit; a systematic 30 g cut recorded as 150 g is a record falsification, and if entered honestly it is a visible breach of the feeding norm. Either way the school carries a disproportionate risk to avoid a one-day gap.
Recommendation: do not accept. Submit a written request to the block office for 30 kg (24 kg shortfall plus a small buffer), attach the attendance-based calculation, and record the request in the stock register. If the buffer does not arrive by day 19, escalate in writing to the BEO rather than reducing the ration silently, and inform the SMC. The cook should be told the reasoning - the objection is not that the calculation is wrong but that it solves a 24 kg problem with a 20% cut.
3. A teacher proposes a standing rule: 'Attendance is always 80–90%, so we should reduce every monthly indent by 15% as a matter of policy.' Assess this rule.
Read the worked answer
It is half right, and the wrong half is dangerous.
The right half: indenting on enrolled strength alone over-orders by roughly 15%, and that surplus is where leakage hides. Indenting on expected attendance is sound practice.
The wrong half: a fixed 15% haircut assumes attendance never rises. Attendance is not stable - it climbs in examination months, in winter, on days when a nutrition programme or a distribution brings families in. Model a 95% attendance month: 480 × 0.95 = 456 children × 0.150 kg × 20 days = 1,368 kg. Against a stock indented at 1,200 × 0.85 = 1,020 kg, that is a shortfall of 348 kg - fourteen times the shortfall this school is actually facing in November. The rule converts a small, manageable gap into a structural one.
A defensible rule instead: indent on the rolling three-month average attendance, add a 5% buffer, and reconcile the register monthly against actual consumption, carrying the difference forward rather than treating it as free stock. On the November figures this gives about 408 × 1.05 = 428 child-days × 0.150 × 20 ≈ 1,285 kg - a realistic indent that covers the shortfall without either over-ordering or inventing a permanent 15% cut in what children eat.
The principle to state to the staff: attendance data should shape the order, never the ration.