Four years after coming to power, the State government has managed to provide improved midday meals to over 2.4 lakh school going students.
Substituting ‘vegetable pulao’ with chapatti-bhaji, on realising that students were not too keen on eating the former while also ensuring the food caters to the nutritional needs of the children were two of other critical changes implemented under the mid day meal scheme (MDMS).
The Education Department, in a recent advisory, has instructed the mid day meal contractors to strictly practise quality, safety and hygiene standards. “They should practise hygiene and serve hot nutritional food to the students. The contractors have to abide by the food safety and hygiene guidelines or face action,” Director G P Bhat said.
The department had conceded that there was increasing complaints of poor hygiene and substandard quality of cooked food during the rains. “Complaints about food poisoning increase during the months of July to September which might be attributed to the contaminated food grains, other raw materials or due to failure in conducting a thorough sanitization of kitchen premises and utensils,” he said in a circular issued last month.
“The contractors, including self help groups, are thus asked to be extra careful while maintaining the cleanliness of cooking place and hygiene condition of the cooked food that would be served to children,” he added.
The director asserted that education officials are deputed to kitchens and schools for surprise inspections to assess the quality of the meals. Tightening noose around the contractors, the department has also stated that their bills for sub-standard food would not be signed for release of payment.
