Saharsa: Eleven-year-old Radha Kumari and her brother Raja Kumar study in Class 5 at the Madhyamik School in Baluaha village in Bihar’s Saharsa district. About a month ago, Raja stopped eating the school’s midday meal after he spotted insects crawling in it. Radha continued eating at the school.On May 7, Radha returned home from school and felt nauseous and dizzy. Her head ached and she was repeatedly vomiting. “She had eaten dal and rice in school in which a baby snake was found,” said her father, a shaken Pramod Shah.Pramod, a mason, was working in a village nearby when he heard his daughter was terribly sick. He came back home only to find that more than 40 children of the village were sick – all of them had eaten the school lunch.The food is prepared in a centralised canteen – not at the school itself, but at a large common kitchen that prepares meals for government school students across the district and then distributes them. The District Education Officer (DEO), Hemchandra, said, “The centralised canteen distributes food to over 150 schools in the area.”Students admitted at the Sadar Hospital, Saharsa, after they ate a mid-day meal. Photo: Special Arrangement.Other parents in the village also said insects had been found in the midday meal before. Kumud Thakur, a daily wage labourer, said in a heavy voice over the phone, “Our children had complained to the school earlier about insects in the midday meal, but who thinks what children are saying is important?”“I will not let my children go to school anymore. They may remain illiterate, but at least they will be alive,” said Thakur, both of whose children are very young. They study at Baluaha Middle School in Class 1 and Class 5. He believes it was just a stroke of luck that saved them that day.“By God’s grace, I was home to take them to the hospital. What would have happened if I had not been there? They would have died, and the government would have had nothing to offer except consolation,” he said.Pramod Shah (left, wearing a yellow gamcha) and Pramod Shah (standing) with their children admitted at the Saharsa Sadar Hospital. Photo: Special Arrangement.According to a report in the Indian Express, 719 students are enrolled in the school at Baluaha, of whom 543 were present on the day the food made them many of them sick.DEO Hemchandra said “it is not possible” that insects were regularly spotted in the food served to the children. “Regular inspection of the food is done,” he said. Initially, he claimed that the illness was caused by the ongoing heatwave – not the food they were served. When asked why so many students had fallen ill at the same time, he replied, “This is a matter of investigation.”The DEO also claimed that “only” 15 or 20 students had fallen sick, though the District Magistrate of Saharsa, Deepesh Kumar, told reporters the number of hospitalised students was 160.Parents The Wire spoke to said their children told them about a one-and-a-half-foot-long snake, dead, found in the dal served to one of the students. That student called a teacher and showed it. The teacher casually removed it from the plate and said it was nothing and that no one should worry.“We are from the lower class. We do not have any option other than sending our children to government schools,” said Prithvi Chandra Das, an ice-cream seller, whose daughter Soni Kumari was among the students admitted at Sadar Hospital.Raushan Yadav, founder of Kabir Margdarshak Mandal, an NGO that works with underprivileged students in the area, said, “The majority of the students in these schools are children of poor parents who cannot afford private education and belong to Dalit-Bahujan communities. This is the class that is facing the brunt of the mismanagement.”The purpose of midday meals, a scheme of the Union Ministry of Education, is stated by the government in these words:“The Mid Day Meals Scheme (MDM) is a welfare programme introduced by the government to address the issues of hunger, malnutrition, and low school attendance among children. The scheme aims to provide free and nutritious meals to school children across the country. Under this initiative, a hot cooked meal is served to children in primary and upper primary schools.The primary objectives of the Mid Day Meals Scheme are twofold. Firstly, it seeks to improve the nutritional status of children, ensuring they receive a balanced diet and essential nutrients necessary for their growth and development. Secondly, it aims to increase school attendance and retention rates by removing the barrier of hunger and incentivising parents to send their children to school.”This promise is what has proved terrifying for parents like Thakur, Shah and Das. They want their children to study and the midday meal is an essential support. But they have also seen the assurance turn dangerous. Especially in Bihar, the midday meal scheme has repeatedly put students at government schools in danger. In 2013, 22 children died due to food poisoning after consuming a midday meal, one of the worst such tragedies, though smaller incidents have continued to surface.In most parts of the country including Bihar, the Mid Day Meal Scheme, a “centrally-sponsored scheme”, involves a 60:40 sharing of expenses between the Union and state governments. A few years ago, it was renamed PM-POSHAN (Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman), but unofficially, it still goes by its original name.On the afternoon of May 8, the DEO said all the children hospitalised after the Saharsa incident were well and had been discharged.