Krishnagar, Feb. 21: Primary school teachers in Nadia are fuming. They believe it is not their job to prepare reports on how much rice and dal has been served to how many students for lunch.

In a recent circular, the school education department had said the information on midday meals should be displayed on a blackboard in the school to ensure transparency.

The information to be furnished includes the menu, the quantity of rice cooked, number of children attending school and the expenditure incurred on the day’s meal. The cumulative expenditure till that day of the month would also have to be displayed.

Teachers oversee the serving of midday meals in primary schools but filing daily reports, they say, is a tough ask.

“How can the teachers carry out such a heavy task? They are there to teach. According to the circular, every morning they would have to weigh the rice, take stock of expenditure and select the menu. When will they teach?” asked Bibhash Biswas, the district primary school council chairman.

He has urged the district administration to hand over the responsibility of running the midday meal scheme to the panchayats or the village education committees.

He told district magistrate Rajesh Pandey that it was not possible for the teachers to maintain a daily register of midday meals. “I also pointed out that Nadia has the poorest teacher-student ratio of 1:70. Around 1,000 of the 2,600 primary schools in the district have only one or two teachers for about 250 students on an average.”

A member of the primary school council said the teachers also want to get rid of the responsibility of supervising the midday meals. “They are often harassed by guardians over the quality of food. There have even been instances of assault,” he said.

The village education committees, which comprise panchayat representatives and guardians, should take charge of the meals, he suggested.

Biswas said: “Many headmasters told me they could not concentrate on the teaching because of the pressure to run the midday meals smoothly.”

Pandey said the government issued the circular after being flooded with complaints of corruption. “Many headmasters have already been transferred or demoted.”