Around 21 children fell ill on Tuesday after eating the mid-day meal served at a Zilla Parishad school in Maganoor of the Narayanpet district. Coming as it does close on the heels of a similar incident of food poisoning from the mid-day meal served at another school last week, the incident has put the Telangana government in a spot.
After last week’s incident, the administration had come into action and suspended two officials and transferred the district education officer following which Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy warned of strict action against the culprits.
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Soon after eating the mid-day meal at Makthal-Maganoor Government School, the children complained of stomach pain and vomiting. They were rushed to a government hospital in whatever vehicles were available.
Last week, when the children had fallen sick, the chief minister had taken a serious note of the incident and asked the district collector of Narayanpet to take strong action against the culprits. He asked his office to initiate a probe into the matter and fix the responsibility for the mishap.
The district collectors were alerted against food poisoning. The chief minister had even warned that such incidents won’t be tolerated by his administration.
Following the warning from Reddy, the mess-in-charge and the Mandal education officer were suspended and the contract for \food supply by the vendor was cancelled. But nothing seems to have changed since the children fell sick on 20 November as students were served worm-infested food on 21 November leading to an outcry.
According to the Opposition BRS, there have been 41 incidents of food poisoning in Telangana government schools in the past 11 months resulting in the hospitalisation of 934 students for food poisoning after eating adulterated food. The BRS slammed the chief minister, who was away in Delhi, for failing to appoint a separate minister for either the social welfare or education department.
To be fair, incidents of food poisoning in government-run schools occurred during the BRS regime too. But the Congress party had promised to change the situation after coming to power in the state.
