Mid-day meal: FSSAI urges schools to register under ‘Eat Right Campus’

Soumyadip Mullick, MP, 13 Feb 2023, KOLKATA: In the wake of questions raised in the state over the quality of food served to children during mid-day meals in schools, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is asking its food safety officers to ask schools to get registered under its ‘Eat Right Campus’ programme so it can keep a check on whether hygiene and quality parameters are being followed during the preparation of the meal. 

Last month, several students of a school in Birbhum district fell sick allegedly after consuming a mid-day meal in which a snake was found. They were briefly admitted to Rampurhat Medical College and Hospital. In another incident, a dead rat and a lizard were found inside the mid-day meal served at a primary school in Malda. 

Asked whether the FSSAI, the regulatory body responsible for ensuring a safe food ecosystem, is taking measures to check the quality of food being served to children as part of mid-day meals in schools in Bengal, BS Acharya, director, Eastern and North-Eastern Region, FSSAI, told Millennium Post: “In the schools where mid-day meals are being prepared and served to children, we are asking our food safety officers to ask these schools to get registered under the ‘Eat Right Campus’ programme.” 

He added: “If the school has outsourced the work to some private agencies then we are asking our food safety officers to speak to the schools so that these private agencies get registered under the programme.” 

As to how this process will work, the schools need to get themselves registered online through the portal www.fssai.gov.in/eatrightschool. Secondly, school teachers and/or parents can be nominated as health and wellness ambassadors/health and wellness teams. 

They would be certified by FSSAI by undertaking an online certification programme and driving various safe food and nutrition initiatives. 

Thirdly, Eat Right activities will be conducted, and fourthly monitoring and evaluation would take place using an ‘Eat Right Matrix’. Finally, the school will be awarded an ‘Eat Right’ certificate based on their performances. 

https://www.millenniumpost.in/bengal/mid-day-meal-fssai-urges-schools-to-register-under-eat-right-campus-508535