Chandigarh schools to have cooking sheds

Chandigarh, Feb 24 (UNI) The Chandigarh Administration has decided to construct cooking sheds in all government schools in the Union Territory for preparing mid-day meals for students.

UT Home and Education Secretary, Mr Krishna Mohan said here today that the Architecture Department was designing the layout of cooking sheds proposed in ten Government Schools in the intial phase. Till the construction of the cooking sheds, one room in each school would be spared for cooking purposes, he said.

Mr Mohan revealed that NGOs and Women Groups would also be involved in cooking food for the students.

The Education Secretary also reviewed the Action Taken Report upon the inquiry report submitted, regarding the report of worms present in cooked meal at Government Senior Secondary School, Sector 27. A meeting was also held by UT Home Secretary to discuss and devise the safeguards that can be taken in this regard.

Mr Mohan said the Mid Day Meal Scheme is being run in quite successful and exemplary way in Chandigarh. He said the authotiries of all schools have been instructed to take all possible precautions to serve quality food to the students.

Nine supervisors have also been engaged for transporting cooked food in proper way to the schools, he added. ''From now onwards all the schools will depute responsible staff members for taking delivery of meals and the said staff members would be responsible for ensuring hygiene and quality of meals'',he said and added that this arrangement would continue till cooking sheds come up in schools.

Meals would be stored at a clean, ventilated and adequately lit place in the schools, he added.

The Education Secretary further revealed that all the school heads would seek feedback regarding quality and quantity of food from the parents, students, staff members and submit the report with their own observations to the District Education Officer (DEO) on daily basis. The DEO would conduct a fortnightly review with the school heads and cooking institutes, after gathering the feedback from the schools, he added.

He also disclosed that 'Aayas' (maids) have already been engaged for serving cooked meals in the school and also to clean the utensils of children. Mechanised transportation has also been introduced for transporting cooked meals from the cooking institutes to the schools, he further added.

A Flying Squad consisting of DEO, Deputy DEO, ADO and a representative of Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan would conduct random checks at cooking institutes and in the schools for checking quality, hygiene and quantity of food, he added.

He further added that rotation of chapati and daal (pulses) and rice and daal menu has also been introduced.

Students are now provided with Gur (jaggery) and Groundnuts in a packed pouch of 100 gms for each child, after they showed dislike for 'Mathis', he informed.

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