After rice-salt, children now served ‘roti-namak’ in MDM

Varanasi: Offering ‘roti-namak’ (salt and chapati) in mid-day-meal on August 22 after serving plain rice with salt on August 21 to children of Shiyur primary school in Jamalpur block of Mirzapur district, resulted in suspension of three including a teacher, a nyaya-panchayat officer and block education officer. Furthermore, the basic education officer of Mirzapur was attached to district institute for education and training (DIET).
The incident of serving salt and chapatis among children of this primary school under MDM scheme had come to light on August 21, when its video went viral on social media. Taking note of it, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had attacked the UP government through her tweet.
Talking to TOI on Saturday, Mirzapur district magistrate Anurag Patel said, “During our visit to the school on August 23, I and chief development officer Priyanka Niranjan found the allegation of serving roti-namak in place of roti-daal (chapati with pulse) among kids to be true. During our investigation, it also surfaced that even on August 21 those kids were served rice-salt in the name of khichadi. Taking note of the incident, I ordered immediate suspension of an attached teacher Murari and nyaya panchayat officer AK Tripathi.”
The DM said, “On reaching school it came to light that headmaster of the school, Radha Devi, visited occasionally to the school for past several months. However, except stopping her salary, the department officials did not take any stern action against her. The block education officer had inspected the school once in past several months while basic education officer never visited even once.”
Patel said he had also forwarded his report to state government, recommending stern action against block education officer Brijesh Kumar and basic education officer PK Tiwari.
“Taking action on this report, the state government suspended Brijesh Kumar while Tiwari was removed from BSA office and attached to DIET on Friday night. The CDO has been asked to look after BSA office till next posting an officer,” added Patel.
Priyanka took jibe at the state government through her twitter in which she termed the incident “condemnable” and said the facilities provided by it were becoming very poor.