Food for rot: Kids cant digest free mid-day meal……Sudhir Suryawanshi
Despite annual budget of Rs 3,000 per student, mid-meal at schools provides students a good enough reason to bunk
Despite annual budget of Rs 3,000 per student, mid-meal at schools provides students a good enough reason to bunk
This khichdi tastes like medicine. Maybe worse, is how Std VI student of a civic school, Anil Raskonda, described the mid-day meal served in his school on Tuesday. Scooping up a dollop of the cooked dal-rice from a platter, he quickly gulped it down with a dour face, as if force-feeding himself.
The 12-year-old student of Nagpadas Chandramani Buddhavihar Municipal school candidly admits that he does not fancy the meal but has little choice. I cant afford to skip the meal, said the frail-looking lad whose parents are labourers at a construction site.
The BMC spends around Rs 3,000 a year per student, and the civic body has earmarked an overall budget of Rs 19,000 crore for its schools. The corporation supplies khichdi to 4 lakh students studying in its 1,100 schools. Every day, the civic body provides 100 gm of dal-rice per student. Impressive numbers for an ordinary, if free, lunch.
This mid-day meal scheme started off as an incentive to coax parents of economically underprivileged backgrounds to send their children to school, but having had a few bites (see box), we can vouch for the fact that the fare served provides a pretty good reason to bunk.
Anils schoolmate, Laxman Maykal, has stopped eating the school-provided meal. I get my dabba from home. I used to eat the khichdi but I stopped as it made my tummy ache, says Laxman, who said he has found insects, tiny pebbles and even strands of hair mixed in with his quota of proteins and carbs.
Repeated complaints
Students and their parents have repeatedly registered protests about the poor quality of the meal but their calls for change. Even the teachers say that the khichdi does not pass muster. Hardly any student eats the khichdi served here. Most of the time, half the khichdi is returned to the contractor. Its a daily routine, said a teacher requesting anonymity.
The contract to supply food to this school has been awarded to a non-profit organisation, Sateridevi Mahila Mandal, but the story isnt too different in other schools. Formerly, ISKCON supplied the meal and the quality of the khichdi was good at the time. It had a generous amount of vegetables and the meal was packed, the teacher told Mumbai Mirror.
Another teacher, who is part of the meal distribution system, says the gap between when the food is prepared and served affects quality as well. The food is cooked early in the morning and sent to us only by 11 am.
Local Congress Member of Legislative Assembly Amin Patel, who accompanied Mumbai Mirror to the school, says he has complained to municipal commissioner Swadhin Kshatriya on Tuesday. What do the children get for the huge amounts that BMC spends? asked Patel.
Bharti Tawde of Sateridevi Mahila Mandal said, We use rice supplied by the government. If it is of inferior quality, how can we be blamed?
BMCs Education Officer Abasaheb Jadhav admitted that they had been receiving complaints about the food. If we find any contractor supplying bad quality food, we will impose a penalty of Rs 500. If the contractor fails to better the quality, we will blacklist him. So far, we have blacklisted two contractors.
Mirror Reporters take: Khichdi was inedible
Bland and insipid, was my reaction to the first bite I took. And it quickly went downhill from there. The quality of the khichdi is awful and food served to patients admitted in hospitals tastes better.
Local Congress MLA Amin Patel, who shared the mid-day meal with me had a similar reaction. The rice was of a very poor quality; it was not even clean, as he pointed out.
The sticky khichdi gave off an awful smell. Swallowing it was a tough task. About digesting, the less said the better.
When I poured the dal on the rice, the chana (gram) could hardly be spotted. It was extremely thick. Even to my amateur palate, it was clear that the cook had not used enough oil or masala to spice up the food. It was an ordeal for me to take a few morsels.
* Anil Raskonda, 12, winces after his first mouthful of the fare served during lunch break at Chandramani Buddhavihar Municipal school in Nagpada