Insects found in cooked mid-day meals

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, October 27

Irregularities in mid-day meals being served at government schools continue to surface while the authorities fail to take any notice of these.

The staff of Government School at Hamidpura village claimed that insects were found in the cooked mid-day meals delivered at the school on Saturday. They said cooked food is being served from the kitchen set up in the city.

Many schools say that the fixed schedule of vegetables, cereals and dessert like 'kheer' is not being followed. Besides, costly eatables are not delivered.

Insects had been found in the cooked food served to the students of a Government Middle School at Khairabad village in August.

At present, there are two systems of cooking meals in the city. The mid-day meal project has hired cooks at various schools to prepare meals for the students and a private NGO has been given the responsibility to prepare meals for schools in the city. The latter has set up a modern kitchen to cook meals for thousands of students coming under its area.

Thousands of students from Classes I to VIII have their mid-day meals under a central government scheme. About 40,000 students, studying in 194 schools, including 112 Elementary and 82 Upper Primary schools, are benefitting from the mid-day meal scheme in the holy city.

Questioning the move, the the Mid-day Meal Workers Union said the government had set up kitchens in these schools with an investment of thousands of rupees, then what was the point of outsourcing the cooking work.

The government incurs an expenditure of over Rs 1.23 crore per month to provide once-a-day meal to over 1.61 lakh students, including 1.06 lakh students from primary and 55,000 students from upper primary classes in the district. The government has arranged 1,275 LPG connections for running these kitchens.

Mid-day meal co-ordinator Manpreet Singh said he did not receive any complaint from the school authorities.

The Union Government launched the scheme, also known as the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education, on October 2 in 1995.