Video: In Chhattisgarh School, Mid-Day Meal Is Just Rice And Turmeric

Raipur: 

Refusing to be outdone by reports of children being served chapatis and salt in their mid-day meals in other states, a school in Chhattisgarh has been giving its students plain rice with only some turmeric added to it. Vegetables are missing, as are pulses on several occasions, which would have enabled the young children to at least have some khichdi.

The state’s education department has a prescribed menu for mid-day meals, promising a variety of nutritious food. The reality at the school and some other institutions reveals, however, that the menu remains only on paper.

The Bijakura Primary School in Bijakura village, Patel Para, Balrampur, serves mid-day meals to 43 students and officials admitted that they have not been serving any vegetables for nearly a week. The meals have consisted of rice and dal, or just turmeric rice.

The in-charge head teacher at the school attributed the lack of vegetables to non-delivery by the mid-day meal suppliers, who, in turn, claim that supplies have stopped because they have not been paid their dues. Amid, the blame game, it’s the children who are being deprived of the balanced diet mandated by the government.

“Vegetables have not been provided by the suppliers, which is why we can’t serve them,” the head teacher said.

The malnutrition rate in Chhattisgarh stood at 17.76% in 2022.