Thiruvananthapuram: Even days after food safety commissioner M G Rajamanickam filed a report to sports director, recommending a police inquiry into recurring incidents of food poisoning at G V Raja Sports School, no action has been initiated so far.
This is despite the fact that intelligence wing of police pointed fingers at higher officials in the school over the food poisoning incident. The education department has transferred the school principal, head master and a teacher in connection with the incident.
For every student around Rs 200 is spent for food each day. The school has over 300 students, and the contract for mess amounts to around Rs 18 lakh per month. Sources said that there is strong lobbying for getting the contract and higher officials of the school and the sports department are involved in it.
Despite intelligence report alleging that repeated food poisoning incidents in the school could have seriously harmed the students, the sports department has no plans to go for a police inquiry into the issue. Sports director Sanjayan Kumar said that the department has terminated service of the contractor who was running the mess after department-level inquiry found that there was fault on his part. “Now we have constituted committees for daily, monthly and bi-monthly monitoring of mess. Steps have been initiated to invite a new contractor. Meanwhile, Kudumbashree has been given charge for running the mess,” he said.
However, when TOI asked why there is no probe into the repeated cases of food poisoning, there was no satisfactory reply. “Right now we have not taken any decision to recommend police inquiry. We may do if we feel that it is necessary,” said the sports director.
Sports secretary B Ashok said that the recommendations of the food safety commission were handed over to sports director for further action. Ashok said that he has not seen the intelligence report so far.
However, education department was quick to act on the intelligence report which raised allegations against school authorities. While higher education secretary transferred school principal C S Pradeep, directorate of public administrations transferred headmaster Jainraj S and a teacher.
DPI K V Mohankumar said that though the department is yet to access the intelligence report, it has taken the decision on transfers based on media reports. “We learnt from media reports that school authorities are involved in the incident. That is why headmaster and a teacher were transferred. Sports department is in charge of administrative matters and so it has to take further action,” he said.
Former principal C S Pradeep was unavailable for comments despite repeated attempts over phone.
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