New Delhi, Jan 25 (IANS) The central government has sought a detailed report from Uttar Pradesh following reports that children in a state-run school in Etawah district refused to eat food prepared by Dalit cooks.
The ministry of social justice and empowerment headed by Meira Kumar has asked state Chief Secretary P.K. Mishra to submit the report at the earliest and ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future.
A highly placed source in the ministry said the joint secretary of the Scheduled Caste division D.V.S. Ranga had sent the letter to Mishra earlier this week at the personal intervention of the minister.
“She was anguished to know about the shocking incident from the state. She immediately asked the ministry officials to get in touch with their state counterparts and seek from them an action-taken report,” the source said.
Some officials wonder why instances of atrocities against Dalits continue to pour in from the state though Chief Minister Mayawati is a Dalit.
As per the information available with the ministry, the matter was reported to the local authorities Dec 28 last year, though the school children at Hajratpur Jatia village of Etawah district had not been taking their meals at school since Dec 14.
The school authorities had employed Suraj Mukhi and Kela Devi for cooking the food under the government’s mid-day meal scheme. After the children refused to eat the meals prepared by them, the principal tried to intervene.
“But when they persisted, the principal finally reported the matter to the local district administration,” the ministry source said, adding that the upper-primary school has around 60 children, of which 15 are Dalits.
“The ministry wants to know how all of a sudden the children refused to eat in the school, though the cooks had been in the job for quite some time,” a senior official in the ministry said, requesting anonymity.
Asked if the ministry intended to send a team to the school, the official said: “It will be decided after seeing the report. Even earlier, some children of a government school at Bibipur in Lucknow district had refused to partake meals because the cooks were Dalits.”