Central team visits Bankura to inspect mid-day meals

A 2-member Central team on Wednesday visited several schools in Bankura to inspect the quality of mid-day meals. It carried out an inspection at Ambikanagar High School in Ranibandh Block and many other schools and examined the quality of foods served to the students. The development comes at a time when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been raising her voice against the Central teams. During Banerjee’s recent visit to Delhi, she said that around 155 Central teams had already visited Bengal. She had also claimed that state government officials have given all the clarification they had asked for. Despite the fact, the state didn’t even get a penny for 100 days of work (under MGNREGA) in the budget for 2022-23, alleged Banerjee.

Earlier, Bengal took a stringent measure to maintain proper hygiene of the food being served to children under the mid-day meal scheme. The Commissioner of Food Safety had written to the Principal Secretary of the School Education department urging to take steps to curb incidence of food poisoning or food-borne illness among the kids in government-run schools due to unhygienic mid-day meals.

A Central team had visited the state last year and conducted a review of the distribution of mid-day meals in various districts. There were several Central teams which visited the state in the past one year to take stock of several schemes which are run jointly by the Centre and the state, including the Awas Yojana and MGNREGS.