School canteens likely to do away with junk food by next year

The FSSAI was given six months to develop guidelines for ensuring healthy food in school canteens.

From March next year, school canteens may have to finally start taking junk food off their shelves.
The ministry of health and family welfare informed the Delhi High Court on Wednesday that it has assigned AC Nielsen the task to study the quality of food served in schools and frame proper guidelines for its improvement by March next year.
The court in January this year had given the Food Safety and Standards of India (FSSAI), under the ministry, six months to develop guidelines for ensuring healthy food in school canteens. It has now made clear that the company will set the standards for school canteens in next 26 weeks after proper surveys and trial runs.
"We will now have proper guidelines for school canteens and the best part is they will be developed by a private agency leaving no scope for bias or subjectivity. The court has asked FSSAI to come back with final guidelines on March 22 next year," said founder of Uday Foundation Rahul Verma, who had petitioned against junk food in schools in Delhi High Court two years ago.
"Earlier the question was who would frame such guidelines for schools. But now FSSAI has said the selected company has already started work, which is good," he added.
FSSAI selected the company through a tender floated earlier this year.
The scope of work assigned to the agency includes reviewing of present status of safety and quality of food, studying food habits of school children, collecting data on nutritional levels of students and suggesting measures for improvement.
The fight against junk food, initiated in the high court in 2010, has led to an increase in the awareness levels with many schools banning colas and crisps in their canteens. But many still haven't done much.
"The school canteens are run for commercial interests at many places. The kind of profit a caterer earns on the brands of soft drinks and chips is hard to let go for many schools," a principal, who did not wish to be named, said.
What constitutes junk food is also a grey area. Some schools have replaced aerated drinks, crisps and burgers with momos and bread pakoras. But the former is made of maida, which is considered dead food, and the latter is deep fried.
In fact, the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights had started a campaign last year in which it had even categorised samosa as junk food.