Lucknow: Following outrage over students of a government primary school in Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh being served chappatis with salt, the state government is all set to conduct an audit of mid-day meals across the 75 districts of the state with the help of external agencies. This audit will be done after a gap of more than two years after the one conducted in 2016.
The audit will be focused on checking the quality of the food items that are being served to the students for mid-day meal in government schools of the state. The three institutes that will be roped in for the audit are Lucknow University, IIM Lucknow and Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute in Lucknow. Earlier in 2016, Giri Institute of Development Sciences in Lucknow was roped in for a similar audit of mid-day meal, which was mainly focussed on just two districts.
Also, unlike last time, the sample size of audit this time will be taken from 20 villages in all the 75 districts of the state. The agencies roped in for audit will also audit the nutrient value of the meal and will also ascertain if mid-day meal has helped in reducing the drop-out rate or not. The audit team will also give a feedback on if the mid-day meal scheme has blurred caste and religion barriers among students.
Director of Mid Day meal authority, Vijay Kiran Anand said, “We have assigned institutes and universities this time to get a feedback on mid-day meals served to the kids in order to rectify the mismanagement.”
Earlier a video of children being served salt and roti for mid-day meal at a government primary school in Mirzapur had went viral on social media causing much embarrassment to the state government. Two officials were suspended by the authorities prima facie in the case, but later on the scribe who recorded the video was booked for alleged misreporting of facts. However after much uproar over the booking of scribe, a fresh investigation has been ordered by the new Basic Education Minister Satish Dwivedi in the case.
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