Salim Javed, John & Rabindranath Biswas
Port Blair, Oct 14: A number of students studying in the schools of North and Middle Andamantoday complained about health issues like Diarrhea and Vomiting. However a few parents alleged that mid-day meal is the cause of this problem but there was no direct evidence of children falling sick due to Mid-Day meal as of now.
Mr.Venketewar Rao, Pradhan, Gram Panchayat Shivapuram said that he got a call from the parent of a child from PHC Billiground that a few children of Schools of Middle School Padmanabapuram and Middle school of Pinaki Nagar have fallen sick and having health issues like diarrhea and vomiting.
Acting swiftly, the Pradhan Mr.Venketewar Rao paid a surprise visit to Padmanabapuram School where he found the rice supplied by the Civil Supplies Department was of inferior quality. Talking to Andaman Sheekha, the Pradhan said that during his visit he found the workers of mid-day meal were segregating the rice. On a careful watch, he also found that some unwanted stuff like pieces of plastic/rubber was reportedly found mixed in a bag of rice.
On asking with the mid-day meal workers about the rice, they disclosed to the Pradhan that they have been segregating these unwanted substances in the rice for the last more than 10 days and this type of rice is being supplied by the Civil Supplies Department.
Later, the Pradhan himself ate the Mid-Day meal along with the children to check if the food was worth eating and found the rice was very tough to chew and was reportedly indigestible, he claimed. Later he went to Panchawati School where he found the same issue with the rice.
Meanwhile, the residents of the area told the Pradhan that the Civil Supplies Department is careless in supplying the rice meant for the school children. Talking to the members of the school committees, the Pradhan assured that he will seriously look into the matter so as to redress the problem. The Pradhan has also apprised the Deputy Commissioner, North Andaman of the matter with photographs.
Further talking to Andaman Sheekha, the Director in charge of the Civil Supplies department said that the Department has not received any information in this matter so far. However, the Director immediately directed the concerned civil supply official to investigate the matter and submit the report as soon as possible. The matter will be taken up seriously, the Director of Civil Supplies assured.
The million dollar question here is that after the incident of Model School Port Blair the officials of Billiground region must have send samples of rice supplied for Mid-Day meal to Food Safety unit for thorough investigation immediately after this incident but in this case, this has not been done yet. Without any such tests this will be unfair to blame School authorities or Civil Supplies for any mismanagement.
Further investigating, Andaman Sheekha Daily when contacted health officials of Billiground PHC it was informed that three school students of the region who had mid-day meal and a few other children from nearby region who had not consumed any mid-day meal had also shown similar symptoms today when they were brought to hospital, hence there is a need to find whether some other factors are responsible for health issues like diarrhea and vomiting among children of the region.
