E-Paper
School headmaster pulls cart to deliver midday meal at students’ doorsteps in lockdown
Strap: Headmaster of a remote village school in Dumka has delivered dry ration and cash to 184 students so that no child suffers during lockdown
Strap: Headmaster of a remote village school in Dumka has delivered dry ration and cash to 184 students so that no child suffers during lockdown
It’s around 7am on Saturday. Hemant Kumar Sah, 43, headmaster of upgraded middle school, Majhdiha in Dumka’s Ramgarh block, took a cart loaded with packets of dry ration for midday meal and roamed around villages surrounding the school to deliver the ration at students’ doorsteps so that they do not suffer in phase of lockdown.
Sah has taken the initiative as his duty for rural children during the crisis when most of village farmers, daily wagers and migrant labourers are facing the worst time.
State human resource department recently issued an order asking schools to ensure that students should not be deprived of benefit of midday meal during the lockdown period. The rice prescribed under the meal manual should be delivered at doorsteps of the students.
Defying the orders, many government schools called the students on school campus to take away the ration where violation of social distancing was also found. A section of teachers had raised questions over the government order, terming it a difficult job when lockdown is in place and they are lacking safety gears.
But Sah has been distributing the ration along with cash against egg/ fruit and cooking cost to every student for last four days, despite he is having five parateachers in the school, located around 50km away from Dumka township.
He leaves his school with the cart around 7am and return to the school by 4pm after delivering the food items at doorstep of every student. “The parateachers also help me in the job,” he said.
There are 259 students enrolled with the school from classes 1 to 8. “However, I have received the allotment of meal rice and cash only for 170 students. I was told that the government has sanctioned ration for only 65% students in the school,” he said.
Sah found it tough to distribute the essentials only among 170 students, while the number of students is 259. “I picked the students as per their attendance. Despite this, the number of students rose to 184. Then, I decided to pay the ration for 14 more students from my own pocket so that no student feels injustice,” Sah said.
He said each student from classes 1 to 5 was given two kilogram rice and ₹113.6 in cash against egg/fruit and cooking cost of the meal for 20 days —12 days of March and eight days of April. Similarly, students of classes 5 to 7 received three kg rice and ₹158.2 in cash against egg/fruit and cooking cost.
“Since class-8 students have taken their final examinations, they were entitled to ration of only 12 days in March. They were given 1.8 kilogram rice and ₹92.52 in cash at their doorstep,” he said.
