TUMAKURU: It was a “creepy, crawly” experience, literally, for a girl student of a Karnataka Public School at Honnavalli village of Tiptur taluk in Tumakuru district when she found black worms in the midday meal rations given to her by the school.
The girl (name withheld) shot a video and uploaded it on social networking sites on Saturday, immediately triggering the Twitterati to take the government and authorities to task. “What a shame, the corrupt officials family will be eating 3 meals every day from the dirty money they take home by doing this (sic)’,” tweeted @nammaAnup, reacting to a post by The New Sunday Express. “Shocking. Why the poor are always targetted,” asked @GovindaVijayan.
‘Told to use it as cattle fodder’
In the video, the girl wondered whether the grains are fit for human consumption. She also alleged, “When I asked, the officials advised us to use the grains as fodder for the cattle.” Officials, meanwhile, said the grains are from old stock and the school authorities started distributing them without taking note that 5 quintals of rice and 2 quintals of tur dal had worms in them.
They also blamed the school officials for not distributing it on time. D Rudraswamy, the executive officer for the Mid-Day Meals, told The New Sunday Express that the grains have been cleaned now and will be distributed from Monday, ensuring quality. Incidentally, the school falls under the Assembly constituency of Primary and Secondary Education Minister BC Nagesh.
He had earlier instructed officials to clean the grains before distributing them to students. Obviously, the order has not percolated down to the school level. Though the classes have gone offline, the government is yet to start preparing hot, cooked meals for schoolchildren. Instead, an equivalent amount of foodgrains is being distributed to these students. The government on Saturday said that it will restart the cooked Mid-Day Meal programme from January 26 once classes resume after the Dasara vacation.