Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Politics around the poisonous plate too' that was published in Newsband

Politics around the poisonous plate too

The routine midday meal proved fatal for 22 children in Bihar’s Saran district. This exposes the school authority’s inability to store food materials without the risk of contamination. This points to a colossal failure to observe minimum food safety standards.

This is a kind of man-made tragedy that has shaken the faith of the citizens. Mid-Day Meal is supposed to be the biggest school welfare programme which covers 10.54 crore children. The scheme is supposed to provide nutritious meal to pre-primary and primary school students.

In the past, there have been reports that such mid-day meals have not been meeting nutritional standards at certain places. This report itself should have alerted the authorities concerned. Such an ugly incident can be averted only if there is strong commitment among policymakers and the bureaucracy.

It is doubly tragic that the death of so many children is turned into a blame game to achieve political gains. It’s a shame that our government can’t do a simple thing like being able to guarantee children a safe meal.

This incident was the combined failure of school administration, State Government and Central Government.

The school authorities are to be blamed because they failed to check the quality of food before serving to children, did not take care to see that the school had adequate provisions to store food grains and other commodities and if they did they did not care to explain the situation to higher authorities and lodge complaint and also they failed in their duty of maintaining cleanliness in school.  

The state government is equally to be blamed for not providing all facilities to implement such a well lauded scheme, for not checking and monitoring the food quality being served and for not caring to find out where the commodities came from and went to.  

The Central Government cannot escape blame since it failed to issue enough warnings and it did not take stringent action on Bihar for this ugly occurrence.

It’s strange that the government spends about 14000 crore rupees (all tax-payers’ money) for this scheme and yet the kids are not able to get a simple hygienic food.

Another thing of shame is that when 22 kids who got their life sucked by the mid day meal offered by a government body for education scheme, the State Government minister sniffs a smell of conspiracy by opposition instead of announcing an immediate inquiry and help to the families who lost the life of their beloved. This shows the poor mental state of Indian politics and its politicians.

The country where the drama of politics is played around the poisonous plate needs a radical change and an immediate change within its system.