No dal or veggies, Chhattisgarh school serves rice with turmeric in mid-day meals: Report

Mid-day meals are supposed to provide a variety of nutritious food to children who attend government schools.

A school in Chhattisgarh's Raipur has allegedly been serving only rice with some turmeric to its students as mid-day meal, NDTV reported. Vegetables, pulses and other food items are missing from the plates of students in this school.

Mid-day meals are supposed to provide a variety of nutritious food to the children who attend government schools. These meals are important to the overall health and nutrition of the children, who often come from underprivileged communities.

The publication reports that the state's malnutrition rate was 17.76 per cent in 2022.

The administration of Bijakura Primary School in Bijakura village, Balrampur, which serves mid-day meals to 43 students, admitted that they had not been serving any vegetables to the students for a week because the suppliers had not delivered the same.

"Vegetables have not been provided by the suppliers, which is why we can't serve them," the publication quoted the head teacher as saying.

The mid-day meal suppliers on the other hand said that the deliveries were halted because their dues were not cleared.

The District Education Officer, Devendra Nath Mishra, told NDTV, "This matter has come to my notice through you. I will investigate it today itself and action will be taken as per the rules."

The aforementioned report notes that the problem of supply chain disruption is not limited to just one school but also affects anganwadis.

Ready-to-eat nutritious food is provided to children and pregnant women by the state government to fight malnutrition. However, as many as 52,474 anganwadi centres have not been receiving their supplies for over a week.

"We have not received the nutrition food for July yet, and this is causing concern among parents and guardians," Premlata, an assistant at the Vinoba Bhavenagar Anganwadi Centre in Raipur told NDTV.

Anganwadi centres are key to fighting malnutrition as they often provide the last mile delivery of food, medicine and other services to people in remote areas.

The report quoted Women and Child Development Minister Lakshmi Rajwade, who said "ready-to-eat food is being provided continuously, no files are stuck. The Congress government had given contracts to make ready-to-eat food to the seed corporation. We have assigned the task to self-help groups".