Midday meal horrors continue: Dead lizard served with food in Haryana

The midday meal horror stories have no end to them with the latest incident taking place at a school in Palwal Haryana. In this particular case, a dead lizard was found in the rice served to students, reports CNN-IBN .

According to the report, the children also complained that the food served is of very poor quality and that they have regularly found dead insects in the food. The local administration has promised strong action against the organisation that supplies the midday meals.

“We demand strong action against those who supply the mid-day meal. The entire village has decided that the mid day meal won’t be supplied to our schools anymore,” said village sarpanch Charan Singh.

The midday meal scheme aims to provide free food for school children studying in government schools across in India. But after the incident in Chhapra in Bihar, where 23 children died due to the pesticide the biggest question that is being asked is whether there are any checks and balances in the system at all.

In the recent past the media has reported many incidents of insects etc being found in midday meals to poor quality food being served to children. In Odisha for instance 39 children feel ill after a dead scorpion was found in the food. In national capital Delhi, a CNN-IBN report showed that the food being given is not only sub-substandard but half of their food is being siphoned off by NGOs, which run these schemes.

While nobody denies the need for a midday meal scheme given that it provides food for children to the poorest of the poor, one thing is clear from the recent reports, that the midday meal scheme is not working in its current form.