The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Tackling poor quality food at noon meal programme

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 13, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Tackling poor quality food at noon meal programme

Staff Reporter

Sometimes food gets spoilt before it reaches school

CHENNAI: If the noon meal programme is to attract more children, teachers, parents and meal providers must ensure quality nutritious food.

Often, schools are started with the managements promising to provide infrastructure but they fail to deliver, forcing students to make do with poor quality food, said participants at a meeting organised by the Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group here on Friday. Parents, representatives of non-government organisations, teachers and Government officials discussed ways to improve food quality.

S. Annamalai, joint director of noon meal programme in the Directorate of Rural Development, says funds are given in advance though sometimes there could be some lacuna. Urging managements to deposit the money in bank, he says they should deliver on their promise and provide infrastructure.

Corporation schools are better off in terms of infrastructure and facilities as they have ample space but since the Corporation is a "government within a government" it created other problems that the department is addressing, he says.

Lakshmi Surayanarayana, principal of Olcott Memorial School, a private institution run for the poor said: "Everyone in the school eats the same food. Things have improved."

S. Rajagopalan of M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation called for local granaries in every village that could be maintained by villagers.

Some non-government organisations suggest privatising the noon meal programme, allowing pre-cooked food in the school but Mr. Annamalai says that food is cooked at least 12 hours in advance and sometimes it gets spoilt before it reaches the school.

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