Krishnagar, July 4: The municipality here has held back funds for mid-day meals in 100 schools because it feels the money goes waste with most children bringing food from home.

The schools told the district magistrate today that they had not been getting any money for the past four months and would be forced to suspend the meal scheme if the administration did not intervene immediately.

District magistrate Omkar Singh Meena said: “Municipal authorities cannot hold back the funds. They will have to release it.”

Municipality chairman Uday Mitra, however, was bent on preventing wastage. “Many schools don’t cook the meals everyday as their students bring lunch boxes from home. Foodgrain rots in storerooms.”

The government provides Rs 2.50 for every primary school student every classday through municipalities in towns and block development officers in rural areas.

“We have ordered a survey on the utilisation of funds. The government must stop funding schools that are not utilising the money,” Mitra said.

Meena, however, has ordered a probe into the civic body’s decision. Subdivisional officer Chandrani Tudu, who will conduct the probe, said: “We have to keep in mind the plight of many poor students who are being deprived because of such a decision.”

Kalidas Dutta, the headmaster of Chandsarak Primary School, said the poor were suffering. “Many students bring pastries, cakes and noodles in tiffin, but many others cannot. Why should they suffer?”

Some 50 students of the 90 in his school depend on the free meal.

The government had launched the scheme to arrest the rate of dropouts at the primary level.