Agartala: Tripura administration has issued fresh direction to the teachers and inspectors of the schools that before distributing mid-day meals among the school children, it has to be tested by the responsible teachers in each school.
School Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty on Saturday asserted though Tripura had been appreciated for it’s effort to make mid-day meal accessible to all the students, Bihar mid-day meal tragedy had alerted again to maintain the quality of food in the schools.
“We have directed the school authority to ensure the testing of food before distribution and school management committees, guardians and inspectors were asked to be vigilant over day to day mid-day meal activities in each and every school and we shall not tolerate any lapse at any level,” Chakraborty warned.
He however, maintained that the state govt had taken several measures to retain the food quality and nutrition of mid-day meal besides, setting up cooing infrastructure in every school under the supervision of a teacher.
“We are not allowing anything to cooking without thorough inspection by the school authority and insist that the student should get locally available nutritious food on regular basis,” Chakraborty stated.
He also admitted that many schools still did not have purified drinking water facilities and good infrastructure, which had been given highest priority in current fiscal.
Meanwhile, leader of the opposition Ratan Lal Nath alleged that rural schools had not been maintaining quality and nutrition of food because of large scale corruption in the system and most of the schools were not providing food as prescribed.
Reacting to education minister’s statement Nath stated in fact a central government report praised performance of Bihar in increasing coverage area under midday meal scheme and as per Annual Status of Education Report 2012, the coverage area in Bihar of the programme which was 57.2 per cent in 2010 increased to 75 per cent last year even then 23 children, most of them under 10 years of age, died after eating mid-day meal in the school. (UNI)