Midday meal safety norms to be painted on Bihar schools walls

PATNA: Facing the ire of people over the midday meal tragedy, the Bihargovt plans to provide printed instructions to school principals about food quality and safety besides painting the norms on the schools walls.

"We are readying detailed instructions about maintaining quality and safety of food served under midday meal scheme in schools," Director midday meal scheme, R Lakshmanan said.

The instructions being prepared with the help of food experts will include giving knowledge to principals about first aid measures in cases like that of Dharmasati Gandaman primary school in Saran district.

In the wake of the tragedy, many medical experts voiced that ORS should have been provided to the ill for immediate relief. These things should be known to school principals to face challenges of such nature immediately, Lakshmanan said, explaining the need for first aid protocol being issued to the principals.

The Bihar midday meal director said that besides providing printed instructions about safety and quality of food to be served under the programme, the details would be painted on the walls of schools for everyone to see and follow.

A forensic report had yesterday confirmed the presence of poisonous pesticide in the midday meal served to the students of the school in Chhapra where 23 children died after taking the contaminated food.

The midday meal scheme, a flagship programme of the Union government, is given in 70,200 schools of Bihar covering more than 1.30 crore children.