As the death toll in the Bihar primary school mid-day meal poisoning incident reached 22, the Nitish Kumar Government alleged a ‘conspiracy’, but the Opposition, especially former ally the BJP, accused the Chief Minister of utter negligence.
P K Sahi, state HRD Minister, claimed the headmistress of primary school was related to a local RJD leader who was responsible for supplying the food items from his store. The headmistress and her family members are now absconding.
Interestingly, only last month the state government had asked the Education Department and other senior officials across the state to forgo home-cooked meals and instead have lunch with school children in order to improve the quality of mid-day meals.
“A strong network of vested interests is active in the operation of the mid-day meal scheme. We have seen in many cases that only 35 kg out of the 50 kg of food grains released from the FCI reach the schools. The quality of rice and other grains are not fit to be consumed even by animals,” said RTI activist Shiv Parkash Rai.
The condition of delivery mechanism in the scheme could well be understood from the fact that 22,102 government schools that serve mid-day meals do not have kitchens and in 7,235 schools, the storage room is under construction.
“Despite tall claims, a strong nefarious syndicate of corrupt teachers and government officials has developed over the years and people are just making money out of these schemes while nobody bothers about hygiene and quality of food served. They feel most of the students are coming from the subaltern section and can’t raise their voice,” said CPI MLA Dipankar Bhattacharya who visited the affected village near Chapra.
“CM Nitish Kumar is totally insensitive to the people of Bihar. He went to Gaya just to bask in the international limelight but failed to visit the bereaved families. He didn’t have moral courage to face his own people,” added Dipankar.
In the words of Rupesh, Advisor to the Commissioner of Supreme Court on Mid-day meals, “There is absolutely no infrastructure whatsoever for mid-day meals. Neither the teacher nor the cook was trained.”
MHRD Seeks Report
Stunned by the death of several children after eating a mid-day meal at a Bihar school, the Centre on Wednesday sought a report on the tragic incident from the state government.
Terming the incident unfortunate, Human Resource Development Minister M M Pallam Raju said it was an eye-opener to all the state governments and that it looked like a case of food contamination.
“Though it’s an aberration and not a recurring thing, after getting the report, we will take certain measures to avert tragedies in the future,” Raju told Express.
Secretary (school) in the HRD Ministry, R Bhattacharya, spoke to the Bihar Chief Secretary.
The ministry has rushed Additional Secretary Amarjit Singh to gather first-hand information about the incident and he is expected to submit a report soon.
The HRD Minister said efforts were on to further strengthen the monitoring process of the scheme. “Rice, daal and soya bean were served to the children. As per norms, at least two people should have tested the food before it was served to the children. An FIR has been lodged against the principal of the school,” Raju said.