Meal provider held,process under lens

Vandana Dattatray Gaikwad,president of the self-help group that provided food to Dr Zakir Hussain school students,was arrested on Saturday evening by Khadki police under the charges of providing noxious food. Gaikwad will be produced in court on Sunday.

Meanwhile,all students except nine have been discharged from Sahyadri Hospital where they were admitted.

Pratap Pawar,sub-inspector with Bopodi police chowki under Khadki police station,said,“We have filed a case under Section 273 of IPC for offering bad food. We have also levelled charges aganst her under Sections 336 and 337 of IPC for endangering the life of the students by providing noxious food.” Vilas Gawali,senior police inspector with Khadki police station,said the Hospital sent various samples to forensic medicine department to know the exact form of food poisoning.

Anuradha Sahastrabuddhe,founder-director of Childline,said,“The quality of the food that is served is a reason of great concern. Hundreds of tonnes of food is wasted as there is no adequate provision for storage. We have even found maggots in some of the places where we tested the food quality.”

On the other hand,PMC education board officer Ramchandra Jadhav said the board today decided to appoint self-help groups through proper tender process. He said so far self-help groups were assigned work through the Savitri Bachat Gat Mahasangh,which was a registered PMC-appointed organisation. “We will issue expression of interests and invite applications from interested self-help groups,” he said.

Jadhav said stringent norms would be framed before a self-help group is given work. “Quality of food will be our priority. We will look for self-help groups promising better quality food,” Jadhav said. He said the mid-day meal contract to self-help groups cannot be cancelled as they are given the job as part of the state policy.

The PMC held an emergency meeting of self-help groups at Gadgil School in Shaniwar Peth where the members were issued fresh guidelines about providing quality food. Education officials said there are nearly 243 self-help groups that provide mid-day meal to 275 schools and nearly 85,000 students.

Neighbourhood norms
“Our 45-50% work of mid-day meal is looked after by ISKCON. The rest of the job has been allotted to self-help groups,” said PCMC Municipal Commissioner Asheesh Sharma. The civic chief said they have appointed food inspectors for regular checks to ensure quality of food.

Past case
December 16,2009:19 Class IV students of PCMC-run primary school No 92 in Mhetrevasti area of Chikhali suffered food poisoning after eating khichdi served as mid-day meal.