In wake of two girls’ deaths recently in Bijapur district after they consumed flavoured milk provided under Mukhyamantri Amrut Yojana, the State Government has issued instructions on Thursday about ‘safe storage and use of sweetened flavoured milk’.
State Government’s Women and Child Development Department is distributing sweetened flavoured milk to children of age group 3-6 years, enrolled at Aanganbadi centres of State under Mukhyamantri Amrut Yojana. Under this scheme, each child is provided 100ml of milk on Monday every week.
A State-level training programme was also organized by Red Cross Society at Collectorate premise in order to provide training to Departmental team about safe storage and use of sweetened flavoured milk. In the training programme, detailed information about ‘dos and don’ts for storage, distribution and use of this milk was given’.
In the training programme, Experts told that packets of flavoured milk should be kept at normal temperature at dry and clean place, away from insects and mice. Use clean utensils and glasses for serving milk to children.
Aanganbadi assistants and workers will themselves taste and check the quality of milk before serving it to children. In case, children complaint of vomit, headache, stomach pain and dysentery after consuming milk, they should be rushed to nearby primary health centre immediately.
It was informed during the training that milk should not be served from the packets with leakage or spilt milk. Milk should not be served to the children allergic to milk. Milk should be consumed within 1-2 hours of opening the packet. Milk should not be boiled and it should not be consumed after ninety days from date of manufacturing. The milk distributed under the scheme is UHT milk that is completely sterilised.