By IANS
Ranchi : The mid-day meal scheme meant to provide students nourishment and also an incentive to keep them in school is facing problems in Jharkhand, thanks to the age-old practice of untouchability and poor quality food.
Last week 50 children of a school in Dhanbad district took ill after consuming a mid-day meal of khichadi (made of pulses and rice), apparently after a poisonous snake accidentally fell into the vessel.
The principal of the school Ramlakhan Dubey was suspended. The parents maintain they have complained regularly of the poor quality of food. “The mid-day meal, instead filling the stomachs of our children, is causing them harm,” said Ganesh Lohar, father of a seven-year-old boy.
There are allegations that teachers sell off the food grains supplied to the school and replace it with poor quality grains.
Apart from this, untouchability is taking its toll on the laudable concept of mid-day meals. There are quite a few examples of children refusing to eat food prepared by either a Dalit or a Muslim.
In Sindhpur school of Dhanbad district, 290 km from Ranchi, the mid-day meal scheme was stopped in March last year after Hindu students refused to eat the meal prepared by a Muslim cook.
There were 125 children in the school of which 29 belonged to the Muslim community. The district education department replaced the Muslim cook with a Hindu. But then, the Muslim children started refusing the food.
Finding no way out, the district education department decided to scrap the scheme.
In Itkhori block of Chatra, children refused to take the mid-day meal as a Dalit woman had prepared it. The district administration intervened and threatened to lodge a complaint against the parents under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Following the ultimatum, the parents asked their children to eat the food.
In another incident, children of a school in Putki block of Dhanbad district were told by their parents not to take the food as a Dalit woman had cooked it. The meal was stopped for three months and resumed only after another cook was appointed on insistence by the parents.
The state has more than 6,000 schools where mid-day meals are served.
Reacting on the Sindhpur incident, Ratan Kumar, district superintendent of schools in Dhanbad, told IANS: “We have tried to arrange a meeting of the parents of both communities twice but there was no positive response from any side. We will hold a meeting next week. We are trying to start mid-day meals from January in Sindpur school.”