Children die consuming contaminated milk in mid-day meal

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]ontaminated milk served as mid-day meal in a government school in Mathura on Wednesday, has taken lives of two children and a 35 year of old Anganwadi worker, while 40 other children were hospitalized. The school is a Pre-middle/Primary government school in Kashi Ram Nagar.

The state government has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident.

This comes at the backdrop of a huge allotment by the government Mid-day meal schemes in this year’s budget few months back to improve the quality of the meal.

More than 75 percent of this year’s budget is implemented in schemes of Mid-Day Meal (MDM) and National Nutrition Mission. Kendriya Vidyalaya and Navodaya Vidyalas have even received the bulk amount after 464 crores allocation to MDM.

The victims have been identified as four-year-old Jishan, three-year old Kirti and Usha. Police inquiries found out that the milk, packaged by Amul Moti, Walmart Company, was distributed to the children at about 11 am on Wednesday. Most of the children started feeling sick a few hours after its consumption.


Jishan’s mother Sameera told media said when he returned from school at about 12.30 PM, he was feeling uneasy. Later in the afternoon he started vomiting and had severe diarrhea. When asked he had said he just had milk in the school.

two children have died while 40 others have been hospitalised after consuming contaminated milk served as Mid-day meal

Kirti on the other hand hadn’t gone to the school on Wednesday, but she had shared the milk with one of her friends who had brought the sachet back home. She had complained of severe stomach cramps and was vomiting. She was taken to the hospital in the evening and she died at about 4 am this morning.

Nikki, Muskan and Kanha, who are also admitted to the hospital, had brought back some milk from school and gave it to their brother, who too fell sick.

Anant Veer Das of Akshay Patra Foundation, which supplies mid-day meals in Mathura schools, told media that the milk was supplied to 2041 schools on Wednesday for over 63,000 children. It is an Agra based distributor of “Amul Moti” brand of Walmart, who had supplied milk to the Mathura school through their Vrindavan depot.

An increased amount of 1123.36 crores have been allocated to child sector over last year’s budget of 64635.09 crores. The National Nutrition Mission announced in 2014- 15, which is stalled at an operationalised stage right now could start after receiving a boost of 360 crores from this budget.

BJP has criticized the government for adding milk into the midday meal program stating that milk can get contaminated easily specially in summers. District president, DP Goyal, said the families of the deceased should be immediately paid a compensation of Rs 10 lakhs.