Quality of mid-day meal at stake with LPG cap, rising prices of veggies

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.

Having initiated a pilot project in April for the preparation of mid-day meal, Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 10, has been working with limited resources. The constraints include increased LPG and vegetable prices, lack of regular insect control, limited staff and no separate staff to clean lavatories. School authorities, however, maintain that hygiene and taste is ensured, above all.

At present, the kitchen has four burners, for which every three days, they need to install a new gas cylinder. They used to keep some cylinders for emergency, but now with the increased rate of LPG and capping on the number of cylinders being issued per connection, they are left with no reserve cylinders, and owing to a fixed budget have not been able to book a new one in the past one week.

"Though we have a domestic connection, we are ready to buy LPG at commercial rates because in case we do not receive a cylinder by tomorrow, we might have to resort to cooking on firewood," said mid-day meal teacher in-charge Priti Garg.

She added that the escalating vegetable prices had upset the menu as the upper limit for the daily expenditure per child remained the same, while with varying prices, they might have to cut down on some vegetables entirely or compromise on the quality.

Priti highlighted that a provision could be made for regular spraying of insecticides in the store rooms. "We have approached the Malaria department several times to spray medicines in the kitchen, but have been unable to fix an appointment," she said.

The in-charge added that they did not want to approach any private pest control agency as they wanted to be certain that the disinfectant was food-grade safe.

... contd.

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