Substandard midday meal: HC issues notice to Centre over PIL

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court today sought Centre’s response on a PIL alleging that nutritional value in mid day meal provided to children in schools is far below stipulated norms under the scheme. A division bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justice Pradeep Nandrajog issued notice to the Ministry of Human Resource Development and sought its response by November 6. The notice followed an argument by advocate Ashok Agarwal pointing that state government has admitted the fact and written to the Centre that food is not meeting nutritional norms, and urged the court to make the Centre a party in the PIL alleging that substandard mid day meals have been provided to children in various government schools. [caption id=“attachment_1085441” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  This image of the mid day meal being served at a school is used for representational purposes only. AFP. [/caption] Agarwal told the court to refer to Delhi government’s letter of June 10, 2013 in which it said that “about 45.1 per cent children demanded an extra portion of mid-day meal and nutrients i.e. as per the norms laid down by the mid day scheme. “Currently the menu being provided under mid day meal are not meeting the nutritional norms for primary as well as upper primary school children. The high court had earlier taken suo moto cognisance of a media report which said that the principal and two other teachers of a MCD primary school fell sick after tasting the mid day meal food. Meanwhile, education department of Delhi government filed an affidavit in the court saying the Centre has not yet issued any guidelines regarding the method of testing food samples for mid-day meal in schools. “After changing the testing method from ‘dry basis’ to ‘wet basis’, which is a more stringent way of checking the quality, samples have not been meeting the prescribed norms of nutrition,” the state government in December 2011 wrote to the Centre asking what should be the prescribed method for testing the food sample. “No clear clarification/guidelines were provided by the ministry of HRD till date as to what methodology of testing is prescribed by the government of India for testing of mid-day meal i.e. “wet basis” or “dry basis” to determine the calorific and protein value in the mid-day meal,” the affidavit said. “On March 9, 2012 the ministry said that mid-day meal should tasted by teacher, community member etc, before serving to the children on daily basis, whereas, the ministry had not advised on the core issue of testing i.e. ‘wet basis’ or ‘dry basis’ and replied on ’tasting’, instead of ’testing’ procedure of cooked mid-day meal sample.” It further said that after the incidents of illness of children due to the consumption of mid-day meals, FIRs have been lodged against the NGOs who have been providing food in these schools. “In wake of the reported incidents of illness of children due to consumption of mid-day meals, an FIR has been lodged against three NGOs namely Indcare Trust, The People Welfare Society and Royal Educational and Social Welfare Society. Their contracts have been cancelled and these organisations have not been given work again,” the affidavit added. The MCD had earlier told the court that there are 13 NGOs supplying food for all schools run the agency here and they have centralised kitchens and food is supplied in shield containers. It said the principal of a school tastes the meal half an hour before it is served to the children. It, however, said that the food is not served to the children in a dignified manner by the schools. PTI