Over 40 students hospitalised in Uttar Pradesh's Etah due to food poisoning after consuming mid-day meal

Over 40 students were hospitalised in Uttar Pradesh’s Etah district on Friday due to food poisoning after consuming mid-day meals.

ANI reported that the incident occurred at the Kasturba Gandhi School. Etah district magistrate Amit Kishore has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident.

The incident comes over a year after the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) had stepped up efforts to monitor and improve the quality of mid-day meals at all city schools.

The civic body’s move had come following a shocking incident in a government school in New Delhi’s Deoli area in February last year, where nine students took ill after consuming a mid-day meal, which was found to have a rat in it.

That incident had prompted deputy chief minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia, to direct the chief secretary to monitor cooking of mid-day meals served in Delhi schools.

An official had said that during inspection, both quantity as well as quality of the meal is tested at school-level by a committee which includes the principal, a school teacher and parents of three students.

The meal is distributed to the students after 15 minutes of this testing, the official had said.

With inputs from agencies