HC flags midday meal safety, orders stronger monitoring in govt schools

Patna: The Patna high court has expressed concern over repeated food poisoning incidents among schoolchildren in Bihar linked to adulterated midday meals (MDM) and directed senior officials to tighten monitoring of food safety standards across schools.Taking exception to recent cases, a division bench of justices Rajiv Ranjan Prasad and Mohit Kumar Shah, while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) taken up suo motu, ordered the additional chief secretary of the education department to work in coordination with the mission director of the MDM and POSHAN scheme to ensure hygienic preparation of meals.The court also directed senior officials to convene a meeting of all stakeholders within a week to explore the feasibility of providing separate hygienic kitchens in every school instead of depending on centralised kitchen systems.“Presently, out of 69,000 schools being provided MDM in Bihar, 55,000 have separate kitchens run by respective Vidyalay Seva Samiti and about 14,000 schools are catered through centralised kitchens run by NGOs,” the court observed, adding that officers must submit a compliance report by June 18.The PIL was initiated after the court took cognizance of a letter from an advocate of the Telangana High Court, referring to media reports of over 150 schoolchildren being hospitalised in Saharsa district. Subsequent forensic reports allegedly indicated the presence of a small snake in food supplied through a centralised kitchen.The bench also expressed displeasure over the handling of the investigation in Saharsa and directed the district police superintendent to identify officers responsible for delays in sending food samples to the forensic laboratory at Bhagalpur.Raising concern over the health and safety of children, the court observed that the issue requires continuous judicial monitoring, given the scale of centralised kitchens operating across Bihar schools.