The Indian government had been giving free school lunch to children without the local officials doing quality monitoring to ensure that foods are properly stored or prepared, thus resulting to deaths of 23 children last week.
Reuters did a review of various audit reports and research papers and found out that the government had incurred negligence on their part as they have ignored reports about the poor quality and bad management in this program.
Rudranarayan Ram, the local education administrator for the village of Gandaman in Bihar state and tasked of monitoring the program, confirmed with Reuters that the government will only check if there are complaints or serious cases. The first time they checked was last week.
The police suspect that the cause of poisoning was of the cooking oil stored in a pesticide container in which children had died even before they reached the hospital. Ram also confirmed that it was the headmistress, who’s still missing at this time, who bought the cooking oil.
Based on Reuters review, there was no poisoning previously reported but there were auditor reports in numerous states about the insanitary preparation and serving of food, and the poor quality of the food itself. Two state government reports from Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh said that there were worms and stones found in the meal.
There was also a survey by the Indian Institute of Management wherein children confirmed that they wash their plates using playground soil then rinse it after they eat.
The Indian free school lunch is the largest in such program in the world catering to 120 million children. The government also considers this program their most successful as it had convinced poor parents to send their children to school and continue their studies. Even the United Nations support this program as well as non-governmental organizations and right activists.
