Assam minister’s sudden raid unearths ‘anomalies’ in midday meals

Guwahati: After being dragged into several recent controversies over the midday meal scheme, Assam education minister Siddhartha Bhattacharya on Friday made a suprise visit at a number of schools in Dibrugarh district.

While conducting the sudden raid at schools, the state education minister got a broader picture of alleged mismanagement and came to know about several anomalies of school authorities in managing the midday meal system at schools.

While making his visit to Graham Bazar Girls High School, Bhattacharya discovered that a large amount of rice, much more than the required amount, was stocked up inside the store room and, as a result, a huge quantity of it was getting damaged and becoming unfit for consumption.

The minister was left in a state of shock to see the dilapidated condition of the store rooms of the school that was filled up with cockroaches and rats without any maintenance for a long time.

When questioned about the alleged carelessness in maintaining the store room which is supposed to be kept in a hygienic condition, the school principal ended up giving lame excuses, said reports.

While making his sudden visit to Borbari Lower Primary School at Lohowal locality of Dibrugarh, the minister also found huge anomalies in food stock and data relating to this being maintained in the register.

Speaking to the media on sidelines of his surprise visit, Bhattacharya expressed that he was shocked to see the anomalies of school authorities in the midday meal system. He further expressed that school authorities seem to be taking the scheme in a very casual way and hence students are suffering from it.

Bhattacharya strongly condemned the lackadaisical attitude of school authorities in managing the midday meal schemes at their schools and alerted that the department would not tolerate such attitude of school administration and will take needful action as per law.