Mid-day meal apathy: Akhilesh Yadav slams UP BJP, cites 'rampant corruption'

As a new incident of mid-day meal apathy surfaced on Tuesday in Uttar Pradesh, the former chief minister of the state Akhilesh Yadav took to Twitter and slammed the BJP for the prevailing corruption within the scheme. This comes after a dead rat was found in the mid-day meal served to school students in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar. Sources report that nine children and a teacher have been hospitalised after consuming the meal served at Janta Inter-college. The food had been given to students studying in classes six to eight.

Akhilesh Yadav on Mid-day meal apathy

Expressing dismay over the recurrent reports of faulty mid-day meals, the former CM of UP, Akhilesh Yadav said, "It was due to the rampant corruption in the 'Mid Day Meal' scheme in Uttar Pradesh that ten times water was added to the milk, a dead rat was found in children's food. Because of this 9 children have become ill in Muzaffarnagar today. I request the BJP government that they should fill their stomachs elsewhere but do not play with the lives of children".

Read: Mid-day meal horror: Rat found in dal served to UP school students, 9 kids hospitalised

Read: Sonabhadra school feeds '1 lt milk mixed with a bucket of water' to 85 school children

Rat found in mid-day meal dal

According to sources, after a rat was found in the food that was served under the 'Mid-day meal scheme', the area's Basic Shiksha officer initiated an investigation into the NGO - Jan Kalyan Sanstha Committee which provided the food. The rat was reportedly found in a container with pulses. While the students and the teacher were immediately rushed to the hospital, sources report that the patients are now better.

Read: Mirzapur Mid-day meal: DM questions journalist for making video

Watery milk fed to school children 

Just a few days ago on November 29, Uttar Pradesh's Salai Banwa Primary School in Sonabhadra district came under investigation after it was found out that a bucket of water was allegedly mixed into one litre of milk to serve 85 students under the  mid-day meal scheme. Visuals from the school show a school cook boiling a large amount of water before adding a litre of milk to it. The cook claimed that she had been told by an assistant teacher to adulterate the milk.

Read: Mid-day meal apathy: Yogi govt assures strict action on defaulters