Replace aluminium mid-day meal utensils: Edu Dept

A letter issued by the Punjab State Mid-Day Meal Society to all district education officers (DEOs) in the state advised all schools to make less use of aluminium utensils for preparing mid-day meals for students. Schools were also asked to send a list of the students for whom the meal was being prepared on a daily basis.

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Talking to The Tribune, a head teacher from a school near Payal said she had purchased a huge cooking pot recently for Rs 4,500, as the one they had cracked, but according to the new directions, aluminium utensils were to be avoided. “How can we keep buying new utensils if grants are not issued? Teachers cannot make expensive purchases from their own pockets,” rued the head teacher.

Another teacher rued that new directions were issued by the Education Department every other day. “Now, the latest letter says not to use aluminium utensils. There are about 800 students in our school who are provided mid-day meals and for preparing it, we have five huge cooking pots of aluminium. How can we replace these immediately when we are not even sure about getting a grant? Even if the grant is released later, how will we manage things?” asked the teacher.

DEO (Elementary) Ravinder Kaur said since the department had assigned her duties for the CM’s function, she would get feedback from schools and raise their concerns with the higher-ups. “If these utensils are to be replaced, we will do so, but for getting grants etc we will have to get in touch with the higher authorities,“ said the DEO.