The Hindu
A public interest litigation in Supreme Court argues that there is no
effective monitoring and evaluation of quality of food served to
students under the midday meal scheme.
Bench issues notice to Centre and 12 States
The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Centre and 12 States
seeking their response on steps taken to ensure cleanliness in the
midday meal scheme and to prevent incidents like the one that occurred
last month in a government primary school in a Bihar village, where
23children died after eating contaminated food.
The States to which a Bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice
Ranjana Desai issued notice, returnable in four weeks, on petitions
filed by Antarashtriya Manav Adhikaar Nigraani and Sanjeeb Panigrahi,
are Bihar, Odihsa, West Bengal, Assam, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and
Jharkhand.
The petitioners said “there have been a number of deaths and incidents
of vomiting by children in different parts of the country, mostly in
Bihar, Odisha, Haryana, West Bengal, after eating unhygienic mid-day
meal.”
In over 12 lakh government-run and aided schools across the country,
children received free, cooked lunch every day but “they are constantly
exposed to the risk of food poisoning and related health hazards due to a
lack of mid-day meal infrastructure and proper monitoring of the
scheme,” the petitioners said.
When children fell sick, “there is a backlash against the whole
programme from parents and teachers.” There was also a failure to meet
standards in terms of calorific value of meals, quality of food, and
micronutrients. It was noticed that inspection of foodgrains was not
being undertaken. The petitioners sought a direction to the respondents
and authorities to enforce procedures in the interest of hygiene and
safety of children, and to initiate criminal proceedings against the
persons responsible for death of children caused by contaminated or
poisonous meal.
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