Just when the country is getting ready to expand the Right to Food for all, the recent deaths of school children in two districts of Bihar (Chhapra and Madhubani) have raised many uncomfortable question about our standards of cleanliness, sanitation and hygiene in and around the kitchens being run under the Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS). These, and many more anomalies, have been brought out by a recent report titled...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Delhi's mid-day meal dilemma: 80 per cent of the food cooked for students is sub-standard -Neha Pushkarna
-India Today A Chhapra like tragedy is waiting to happen in the capital. Delhi has made a mess of its Mid-day Meal Scheme: only 50 of the 280 samples taken in 2012-13 from centralised kitchens run by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to provide midday meals in government schools in the capital met prescribed standards. In other words, more than 80 per cent of the food cooked for primary school students from Class 1 through...
More »Delhi no model for midday meal scheme -Manash Pratim Gohain & Risha Chitlangia
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Rattled by the midday meal tragedy in Bihar in which 23 children have died, the Delhi government and the municipal corporations swung into action on Thursday. Officials of the Directorate of Education (DoE) led by Marcel Ekka, deputy director of the midday meal programme, visited many schools to take stock. Officials said, unlike other states, the situation in the national capital is better as none...
More »Did govt ignore warning signals? -Akshaya Mukul
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Bihar's midday meal tragedy is a case of the state not heeding the advice of monitoring institutions that have been warning HRD ministry and the state that all's not well with the flagship programme. Monitoring institution reports are discussed at programme approval meetings and referred to states. But there's no action. Monitoring bodies prepare a field report of 25% schools in a state each quarter. In...
More »Now, 20-member panel to scrutinize midday meal quality
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In the aftermath of the Bihar mid-day meal (MDM) tragedy that resulted in the death of more than 20 children, the HRD ministry on Thursday announced setting up a new 20-member committee to go into the quality aspect of the MDM scheme nationwide. The committee, to be headed by HRD minister M M Pallam Raju, would have secretaries of ministries of women & child development, health,...
More »