People's Democracy

SFI Condemns Mid-day-meal Tragedy

The central executive committee of the Students’ Federation of India has issued the following press statement on July 17, 2013

THE central executive committee of the Students’ Federation of India expresses deep grief over the death of 23 children and several others hospitalised, after consuming mid-day-meal in Dharmsati Primary School in Masrakh block of Saran district in Bihar. Preliminary investigations suggest the callousness of the administration and the government authorities in running a scheme, which was conceived to increase the enrollment in the primary schools of the country. Reports point towards presence of insecticides in the food, which was served to the children - an act which is completely unacceptable.

Mid-day-meal is a central government run scheme which has merely become a propaganda show for the Congress-lead UPA and in spite of repeated incidents in various states, it is not taking measures to check these. Right to Education (RTE) talks of mandatory parents-teachers associations in schools, which are supposed to monitor government schemes; but in most of the places these are non-functional. This incident again points towards the urgency required from the central government, in the implementation and monitoring of such an important scheme.