New Delhi: The Supreme Court asked the Centre and states to respond to two PILs seeking an independent probe into midday meal scheme-related deaths and alleged laxity in enforcing guidelines to ensure healthy food in the welfare scheme on Friday.
These two PILs were filed by an NGO through advocate Shobha and another by Sanjeeb Panigrahi which claims that they were approaching the court “in the wake of horrifying incidents of school children dying/falling sick after consuming contaminated midday meal”.
Shobha told a bench of apex court Justice P Sathasivam and Justice Ranjana P Desai, which wasted no time in issuing notice on the PILs, “It is unfortunate that the stories of rotten eggs, lizard, rat, cockroaches, insects and scorpions in the midday meal, served to about 12 crore children covering over 12.65 lakh schools across the country, have become a routine in one or the other government school.”
The midday meal scheme was launched in 1995 aiming to increase enrollment, retention and attendance of children in primary schools and at the same time, help improve the nutritional level among young boys and girls. By 1997-98, the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) was introduced in all blocks of the country, said the petitioners.
The Supreme Court had directed states to implement midday meal scheme by providing every child in every government and government-aided primary school with cooked afternoon meal having a minimum food value of 300 calories and 8-12 grams of protein every day for a minimum of 200 days a year.
The petitioners said except for broad guidelines framed in 2006 by the government, no legal framework exists till date to monitor the quality of midday meals served to crores of school children.
They said, “The tragedy in Gandaman village of Bihar where 23 school children died after consuming midday meal was a disaster waiting to happen as there is no accountability for ensuring quality in the food served under the midday meal scheme.”
The petitioners said and requested the court to issue a direction to the governments to frame guidelines to ensure healthy midday meals to school children. “The pictures of few of these schools serving food to the children are quite disturbing. Children are served food almost as if they were beggars.”
It also requested the court to issue a direction for enacting “a proper legislation for implementation and for action to be taken against persons found guilty of negligence in implementation of the midday meal scheme”.
Bureau Report
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