AGARTALA, Feb 20 (TIWN): Just before people could recover from the shock of Mid-day meal storm at Dharmanagar, once again shock wave has invaded the state with report of death of one more child after consuming mid-day meal.One child died on the spot with apparent food poisoning allegedly caused by eating a free meal served to the child by government school as a part of midday meal program on Saturday.The deceased child is identified as Manabir Deb son of Mithun Deb.The deceased father Mithun Deb alleged that his child merely one and half a year old became sick on Saturday afternoon after eating a lunch served at a government school located at Indranagar Satsang area.However, the father further alleged that his son brought the food from school served in mid-day meal and after eating the meal at his house the child died on the spot as it was poisonous.Talking to TIWN correspondent Welfare & Social Education Bijita Nath turns speechless when asked about the reasons leading to such mid-day meal scandals in the state.

Minister Nath further said that proper investigation will be done into the matter and necessary action will be taken to curb it.

One the one hand the state government claims that the state provides best services to the government school but the ground reality shows that many fall ill and even dies after consuming the midday meal served in the school.

Rather than monitoring the hygiene of food served in the schools government officials are busy in promotion of election campaign and staging protest over the issues of other states.  Day after day the state is hit with several allegations on mid-day meal scam but no action is taken to curb the discrepancy in the mid-day meal scams. 

Recently, in another incident at Anganwadi Centre, Ward number 2, North Ganga Nagar, at Dharmanagar subdivision students were shocked to find the parts of the dead rat in their plates. Among them, the body of the rat was found in a plate and the tails, other body parts were was found in other plates. Many plates were full of rat parts which were consumed by infants.

The meal had been given to them as part of the government's midday meal scheme, the world's biggest school feeding program that provides food for 120 million children.

Free lunches are offered to poorer students in state-run schools as part of government welfare measures in many of India's 29 states.

Educators see the midday meal scheme as a way to increase school attendance. But children often suffer from food poisoning due to poor hygiene in kitchens and occasionally sub-standard food.

The mid-day meal allegedly claimed one child on Saturday after consumption of free food sparking violent protests amid suspicions by the parents that it was poisoned.