The mid-day meal poisoning in different districts of Bihar has sent ripples across schools in Jamshedpur. The Government schools in the city have tightened their belts that such incident is not repeated in the city.
Taking lessons from the incident the East Singhbhum district organised its first ever meeting of the steering-cum-monitoring committee for mid-day meals at the district collectorate on Friday. East Singhbhum deputy commissioner Amitabh Kaushal has ordered the members of the committee for conduct of meeting every month. The DC who expressed unhappiness at the defunct state of the steering committee has asked the authorities to take steps to ensure that similar mid-day meals steering committee are constituted by next Tuesday at each of the 10 blocks in the district.
"The meeting was called to review the status of the scheme in the district. I have asked the education officials to ensure that mid-day meals steering committee meetings are held every month not only at the district level but also at the block level henceforth," the DC said. In another major initiative the DC has asked that from Monday onward, all the 2018 schools in the district where the mid-day meals scheme is operational would have the meals tasted by four designated officials at each schools and their statement recorded for the mid-day meal. " We will also ask students if they have any reservations about the quality of food that is being served to them they can come and contact us," said a district official.
The East Singhbhum civil surgeon Jagat Bhusan Prasad who is also a member of the steering committee was asked to conduct surprise inspection of school kitchen and meals served along with district food inspector. The civil surgeon was also asked to check quality of food materials dished out by Iskcon from its centralised kitchen in collaboration with Tata Steel at Ramdas Bhatta in Bistupur. The Iskcon Food Relief Foundation started its pilot project in the city on April 2012 though the foundation stone was laid by Chief Minister Arjun Munda in July 2011. The Rs 4.28 crore kitchen is a collaboration with Tata Steel.
Tata Steel provides the infrastructure that would be required for successful rollout of the Mid-Day Meal Programme while ISKCON Food Relief Foundation, an NGO that provides top-class Mid-Day Meal Services in various towns and cities across the country, will take charge of the day-to-day management of the programme. ISKCON Food Relief Foundation had obtained ISO 9001 and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point certificates and ensures food safety management. It partners with many State Governments and conforms to the Supreme Court stipulation of 450Kcal and 18 grams protein per child.