Food for thought-II
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 19 , 2013 -

A chain of similar events that has followed the June 16 Mid-Day Meal tragedy in a Government Primary School in Bihar's Saran district has compelled us to relook at the greater issues surrounding the implementation of Mid-Day Meal scheme, which is supposed to protect children from classroom hunger and not to snub out their lives.

Just a day after 22 students died from eating the food served to them under Mid-Day Meal Scheme in Saran district, about 50 children of Navtolia Middle School, another Government school, in Madhubani district of Bihar were taken ill with complaint of stomach ache and vomiting after they ate their mid-day meal in school.

The students were rushed to health centre where they informed the doctors that the meal served to them had a dead lizard in it. Close on the heels, 102 girls of a Government school in Neyvelli district of Tamil Nadu were hospitalized after they ate their mid-day meal on July 18.

Soon after eating the meal, the girls reportedly complained of giddiness and nausea and were immediately rushed to the nearest hospital.

The girls, who are between 9 and 16 years of age, may be out of danger now, but the officials suspect that the eggs served to them were contaminated.

On the other hand, eight students, including seven girls, of a Delhi Government-run school in North West Delhi reportedly fell ill after they were given folic acid and iron supplements under a newly launched government scheme.

The students were brought to Sundarlal Jain Hospital in the afternoon of July 17 and they were discharged the following morning.

So, what is happening in the implementation of the ambitious scheme of the UPA Government?

Or, is this chain of events just hysteria that has spread like wild fire among school kids after the Bihar tragedy? Not, at all.

These are nothing but the manifestation of Government's indifference attitude towards the health of children in state-run schools.

As we have pointed out earlier, the quality of rice, dal and other food items supplied for Mid-Day Meal scheme in Government schools has always been a cause of concern with various survey and test reports conducted across the country confirming that the raw rice and other food items provided under Mid-Day Meal scheme were 'sub-standard', 'pest-infested', 'unsafe' and 'not fit for human consumption', not to speak of the unhygienic conditions in which the meals were prepared. However, all these concerns and test reports have been consistently ignored as if waiting for the tragedy to happen.

It would be better for Bihar Education Minister PK Sahi and the like of his political kinsmen and women, whose first reaction over such tragedies is go for witch-hunting, to realize that there is no conspiracy behind the deaths of innocent children after taking the contaminated foods served to them in the name of Mid-Day Meal scheme.

On the other hand, it is funny that the Centre has decided to constitute a monitoring committee to look into 'the qualitative aspect of implementation of the programme, the quality of the food that is supplied, the effectiveness of the supply chain and the hygiene of the place where it is cooked' after sleeping over a volcano that was only waiting to be erupted.

By the way, why there has been no such Mid-Day Meal tragedy in the problem-riddled Manipur?

The answer is too simple, the students here never get to taste their mid-day meal in school with the rice and other food supplements provided siphon off, thus saving the children from meeting the fate like their counterparts in other parts of the country.