A clean and hygienic mid-day meal kitchen in Pune, Maharashtra

It's not as if this is hasn't happened before - there have been reports of bad and spoiled food, children falling dangerously ill and sporadic deaths too. But the sheer toll this time has made this into a headline and a political blame game. The scenes were nightmarish, distressed parents running helter-skelter with their ill children slung over their shoulders or being carried in their arms. The parents, whose ward succumbed, took to loud laments, while those who were still alive and being treated were praying, desperation etched onto their faces. Though doctors worked valiantly to try and save the little ones, as of now 27 children have already fallen prey to the killer food - suspected to be contaminated with insecticide, though stories abound. It has also turned into a political farce with Bihar's Chief Minister Nitish Kumar having ordered a probe and sent a forensic team to get to the bottom of it. The opposition is blaming the government, and the government is calling it a conspiracy by the opposition.

Though this is not the first time that India has faced a problem with the mid-day meals; it is by far the most tragic.

  • Recent news that has trickled in from Kolkata is that a school had to sell off 400 quintals of rice, meant for mid-day meals, as cattle feed because it was so poor in quality - a tragedy similar to that of Bihar which could have caused unprecedented illness and deaths in Kolkata has thus been averted.
  • On Wednesday, July 17, there were reports of 31 children falling ill after their mid-day meal in a school in Dhule, Maharashtra
  • On July 5th, reports trickled in from Ajmer, Rajasthan, of insect-infested flour and a dead snake in the kitchen of an NGO that serve mid-day meals to schools.
  • On June 27th, 23 students in Panaji, the capital of Goa, fell ill after eating their mid-day meal
  • In March 2013, two children died in Panipat, Punjab, after eating this free meal.

It's no secret that the quality of this food, plagued by rampant thefts, leakages and corruption, is poor with many a time children refusing to eat the same. While school authorities and the government try to pass this off as the children's love for junk as they find the meals too bland - the Indian media has conducted many sting operations proving otherwise. Lizard droppings, bugs, cockroaches and even worms have been found in the food sometimes, turning this for-the-people gesture by the government into a debacle. Many schools lack basic hygiene on site needed to cook the food there, and if the food is cooked off site and delivered - temperature conditions often end up spoiling and rotting much of it. If the money provided by the government to feed the children was to be counted on a per child, per day basis - in some districts it is as low as 55 paise - so small an amount that it cannot be converted in dollars at all. The salaries of such workers is a meager Rs 1,500-3,500 per month ($25-60) - corruption will tinge this otherwise laudable project if concrete steps aren't taken to correct all that's wrong.

Experts are now calling for the decentralisation of a program such as this and letting the onus of cooking fall onto the mothers of these students - providing them with the means to be able to cook for so many children will ensure quality since their child is part of the same group.