Assam Students Being Served 'Dangerous' Food Under Government's Mid-Day Meal Scheme

Guwahati, November 2, 2019:

With questions being raised about the quality of the Government's mid-day meals being served to the children in the Government schools in Assam, the deplorable condition of the food that is being fed to the children has been exposed.

In a recent incident reported from Assam's Nagaon district, a local NGO, Moonlight, has been exposed serving deplorable food items under the scheme.

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Videographic evidence shows that the students are being fed bland, dry, half-cooked rice, and dal that mainly consists of the husk of the grains.

[caption id="attachment_44330" align="alignnone" width="630"] 'Dal' being given to the students[/caption]

A teacher from a local school told mediapersons, "Moonlight NGO is serving below-par food in Nagaon, and I am utterly shocked and devastated as a teacher. Children are the future of the nation, and nobody has the right to play with their lives. They are being served only water in the name of dal".

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A local of Nagaon said that the food that is being served to the students poses a serious threat to their lives. "No student can eat this. If a student eats this, he/she will be hospitalized and won't be able to come to the school for 2-3 days", he ried.

[caption id="attachment_44331" align="alignnone" width="539"] Insufficient quantity of rice being served to 73 students[/caption]

The mid-day meal, which is a Government meal programme to better the nutritional standing of school-age children, has come under increasing scrutiny ever since a journalist in UP exposed that children were being fed salt and roti, has shown its ugly side in Assam as well.

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Meanwhile, the midday meal workers , allegedly beiung paid a paltry sum of Rs. 1,000 as salary each month, have staged protests against the government’s move to grant the food scheme contract to 15 NGOs.

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Out of fear of losing their jobs, protesters took to the streets of Nagaon district in Assam and raised cries against the Government. In Tinsukia too, protesters came out with utensils in their hands, as a mark of protest against the Government's move.

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