Substandard food items, lack of hygiene lead to mid-day meal poisoning: Experts
On Thursday, state chief secretary Shanti Kumari issued an order constituting a task force committee for ensuring food safety and developing an institutional mechanism to provide quality food to students
A series of food poisoning incidents in various government schools, residential institutions and welfare hostels in the last few days have put the Congress government in Telangana in a tight spot, forcing the authorities to step up vigilance on the implementation of mid-day meals scheme and focus on maintenance of quality of food and hygiene in school kitchens.
On Thursday, state chief secretary Shanti Kumari issued an order constituting a task force committee for ensuring food safety and developing an institutional mechanism to provide quality food to students during the mid-day meal scheme in the day schools and in the residential school and hostel messes.
The task force committee, comprising three members — commissioner of food safety or food safety officer, head of the departments of the institution concerned or additional director and district-level officer of institution concerned, shall visit and enquire into all food safety incidents reported in any institution.
The committee will also identify the reasons and fix responsibility against the people and agencies responsible for such incidents and submit a detailed report to the government.
Simultaneously, a team of officials from the Telangana education commission, headed by retired IAS officer Akunuri Murali, has started random inspection of schools and welfare hostels to look into the quality of food being provided to the students.
An official statement said chief minister A Revanth Reddy on Thursday held a high-level meeting with district collectors to review the recent incidents of food poisoning taking place in schools. He instructed the collectors to inspect the schools, hostels and residential schools frequently and see that there is no negligence in providing nutritious food in hygienic conditions.
LATEST INCIDENTS
What led to the state government to go on high alert was a series of incidents of food poisoning in residential schools, hostels and mid-day meal programmes in day schools being run by the government, mandal parishad and zilla parishads.
However, two major incidents in the last month rocked the state, creating a major embarrassment to the Revanth Reddy government. The first one was the death of a 13-year-old tribal girl Ch Shailaja from Govt Ashram High School for Girls at Wankidi in the Kumuram Bheem Asifabad district on November 25. She died due to food poisoning after battling for her life in the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad.
On October 30, as many as 64 students of the ashram school were rushed to the local hospitals after they complained of stomach ache and weakness at the hostel. While most of them recovered in the next few days, Shailaja, a class 9 student, along with three others, were shifted to NIMS in Hyderabad on November 5. Of them, Shailaja, who was kept on ventilator, succumbed three weeks later.
The second major incident was two back-to-back food poisoning incidents at the zilla parishad high school at Maganoor village in Narayanpet district in a span of one week. On November 20, over 50 students fell sick after consuming meals during the mid-day meal programme, leading to the suspension of the headmaster and a school assistant.
On November 26, a second case of food poisoning took place at the same school, in which 27 students fell ill after consuming mid-day meals. One of the students was hospitalised in a serious condition, but was later declared out of danger.
Similar incidents of food poisoning were reported from various institutions in Jadcherla, Karimnagar, Nagarkurnool, Jangaon and Bhongir since May this year.
On Wednesday, a Telangana high court bench, comprising chief justice Alok Aradhe and justice J Sreenivas Rao, expressed anger at the officials over the recurring incidents of food poisoning in the government schools.
Reacting to the reports of repeated incidents at Maganoor school, the high court bench wondered whether the district education officers were sleeping. “If food meant for children turns into poison, isn’t it inhuman?,” the bench said, according to people familiar with the matter.
The court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by Help the People Charitable Trust, which alleged that mid-day meals in the government schools did not meet the prescribed quality and nutritional standards.
The court asked for a detailed report from the government on food poisoning incidents, actions taken and preventive measures and adjourned the matter to December 2.
MANY REASONS FOR FOOD POISONING
According to Telangana child rights protection committee president Enjamuri Raghunandan, there are several reasons behind the food poisoning incidents in the government-run schools, including poor quality of rice, vegetables and other ingredients used for cooking food, contaminated drinking water, lack of hygiene in the kitchens and insect-infested food material.
He added that most of the schools are not equipped with proper kitchens with sufficient ventilation and store rooms to keep the food material. “Lack of maintenance of drinking water tanks and dirty bathrooms due to lack of proper supervision by the school management are also responsible for such incidents. Even students do not maintain personal hygiene by washing their hands before taking their food,” Raghunandan said.
Telangana gazetted headmasters’ association president P Murali Krishna said except in a few places where NGOs like Akshya Patra Foundation supply mid-day meals to the students in the government schools, in majority of the schools, the scheme is being run through self-help groups of women.
“A woman member of this group is designated as cooking-cum-helper (CCH) and entrusted with the responsibility of procuring provisions, cooking gas or firewood and vegetables, cooking the food, serving meals to the students, cleaning the kitchen and utensils. The government will only provide utensils and rice free of cost,” Murali Krishna said.
And what the CCH gets from the government is pittance. “On an average, she is paid ₹8 per student (ranging from ₹6 for a primary school student to ₹10 for a high school student), besides ₹3,000 as remuneration. She has to bear the entire expenditure of cooking gas, provisions and vegetables within this ₹8 per head,” he said.
While it is the central government bears 60% cost of the mid-day meals under PM-POSHAN scheme for classes 1 to 8, the state government is bearing the entire cost of the scheme for Classes 9 and 10.
Even this paltry amount of ₹8 per head is not paid regularly. “In the past, the CCHs were not getting their payments for even six months and they were forced to pay from their own pockets, expecting reimbursement from the government. Now, the situation is slightly better. They have been getting the money at least once in two or three months,” Murali Krishna said.
As the payment from the government is very less, it naturally reflects on the quality of ingredients. Naturally, substandard eggs, vegetables, and provisions make their way into the cooked food leading to the contamination.
“The sad part is that whenever there are incidents of food poisoning, the school staff, including principals and teachers, are made accountable. We request the government to keep us away from these duties, so that we can focus on education. Otherwise, the government should not make the teachers accountable,” Murali Krishna said.
In residential schools, the situation is relatively better, as there is a strict supervision by the principals, kitchen caretakers and food contractors. “We procure quality and branded ingredients for cooking. We monitor the quality of vegetables on a regular basis. Yet, occasionally, there are incidents of food poisoning in some places due to lack of proper facilities for storing the provisions and contamination of drinking water,” a social welfare residential school principal said on condition of anonymity.
In the residential schools, too, the supplier of provisions and vegetables do not get payments regularly. “There were times when we did not get money from the department for several months. The rates fixed by the government are not too remunerative. Yet, we do not compromise on the quality,” said A Srinivas, a provision supplier in Ranga Reddy district.
In some places, however, contractors, supply substandard or adulterated grains, pulses, and vegetables infested with stored grain pests, which are used without proper inspection. “When we question them, they demand regular payment, which is not in our hands,” another principal said.
According to Raghunandan, because of poor quality of food in the mid-day meals, most of the students are not willing to eat the food and they prefer getting their own lunch boxes. He said that the latest report on PM-POSHAN scheme has revealed that nearly 32% of students in Telangana have opted out of the mid-day meals served in government and local body schools.
Murali Krishna confirmed this, saying that out of 100 students in a government school, at least 25%-30% students do not take mid-day meals. “Sometimes, they even buy food outside, which is more dangerous due to lack of supervision,” he added.