Mid-day meal: 70 students taken ill in UP

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, September 2

Nearly 70 students were taken ill after they consumed the mid-day meal at a state-run primary school on the outskirts of the city today.

The students at Juggaur Primary School in the Chinhat area were rushed to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital with many of them vomiting and complaining of stomach ache due to suspected food poisoning. 

Lucknow District Magistrate Raj Shekhar said three students were admitted to the hospital and the remaining discharged after administering medicines. 

The mid-day meal was supplied by an NGO — Akshay Patra — which claims to have the largest automated state-of-the-art kitchen.

Food samples were collected from the school campus. The Food Safety Department has also collected a matching sample from the NGO’s kitchen for lab testing. 

This is the second recent incident of food poisoning in a primary school in Lucknow. On July 29, over 50 students of a school in the cantonment area had taken ill after consuming the mid-day meal prepared by the same NGO.