Kerala Minister visits govt school to check the quality of food and finds hair in dish served to him, left red-faced
GR Anil was accompanied by media, during this food check.
In a bizarre incident, Kerala's food minister GR Anil, who visited LP School in Cotton Hill to review the quality of meals offered to students, found a strand of hair in the food served to him. The media personnel captured the visuals of the minister taking the hair from the food. Later, the staff served fresh food to the minister on a new plate.
But this incident has raised the level of quality of food being served to children in mid-day meals in a series of events where hundreds of children were hospitalised for food poisoning after eating noon-meals in school.
Later speaking to the media, the minister acknowledged that there was a shortage of staff at the school which is affecting the quality of the food prepared for the students.
The noon meal scheme benefits around 20 lakh students in the state. However, the scheme has been rife with troubles such as concerns over the quality of rice supplied to the schools and school authorities’ inability to arrange vegetables and other essential commodities in time for meal prep
Many schools were forced to seek contributions from local people and organisations in the form of commodities like coconut, oil and vegetables.
According to a Mid-Day Meal circular issued by the state government in October 2021, schools were to get Rs 6 – 8 as per-student allowance for the noon meal, depending on the school’s student strength. However, the schools have been demanding that the rates fixed about 15 years ago should be increased, and that there were always inordinate delays in the payments.