After 23 deaths, Bihar plans quality checks on midday meals

Bihar government today said it would issue stringent rules for quality checks and for rectifying infrastructural shortcomings in schools in the wake of the midday meal tragedy that claimed the lives of 23 children.

Reports quoting state government officials said in addition to the provision for quality checks by the cook and a schoolteacher, the government was planning rotational checks by parents to ensure hygiene and food quality.

Twenty-five other children who fell ill after consuming the contaminated mid-day meal in their school in Bihar's Saran district were shifted to the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) on Tuesday night.

The conditions of the children who were shifted to the PMCH are reported to be improving.

While state government officials try to explain away the tragedy as failure of the school to follow standing orders, reports point out that the union HRD ministry had already warned the state government about the poor quality of food served to children in most schools.

The fact that the mishap at Saran was followed by a similar incident in Madhubani where 50 children were taken ill on Wednesday after taking midday meal, close on the heels of the Chhapra tragedy, only proves the laxity of the state administration in addressing the issue, say critics.

The midday meal scheme, a flagship programme of the central government, covers 12.5 million children in 70,000 schools across the state.

The HRD ministry, meanwhile, has set up a new committee to look into the quality of mid day meals. "The focus is that this does not happen again.

Time has come to strengthen the programme and form another committee to look into the quality of food and hygiene," said HRD minister Pallam Raju.

Meanwhile, reports point out that children in several schools across the state and elsewhere are refusing to take food packets provided to them under the midday meal programme.

There have been no arrests so far over the death of the 23 children in Chhapra.