Students of a government primary school eat the midday meal on the railway tracks at Rajiv Nagar in Patna on Tuesday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Bihar Rajya Prathamik Shikshak Sangh — the largest teachers’ body in the state — on Tuesday announced its members would disassociate themselves from the midday meal scheme in elementary schools from July 25.

More than 3.5 lakh teachers (on regular pay scale and on contract) under the Sangh banner are involved in different stages of executing the midday meal scheme — from supervising the food prepared to purchase of grocery and vegetables from market. The Sangh’s move would pose a new challenge to the education department in implementing the food scheme.

The education minister, P.K. Shahi, and his department’s principal secretary Amarjeet Sinha were not available for comment on the decision of the teachers’ body despite repeated attempts. They did not reply to The Telegraph’s text message either. The midday meal scheme director, R. Laxamanan, said: “I have not yet examined the pros and cons of the issue.”

The Sangh president, Brajnandan Sharma, said: “The teachers’ body has decided to keep away from the midday meal scheme because the state government has devised a new technique to target teachers for the food mess in schools. Not only the Saran incident, whenever there is a controversy involving the midday meal scheme, the teachers are the only one to be blamed.”

Sharma said the teachers were feeling humiliated after the role of the suspended school principal, Meena Devi, was being probed in the Saran incident. Dinesh Singh, a Sangh member, said: “The state government is blaming the school principal, Meena Devi, for the entire incident, but the role of the education department officials has not been questioned yet.”

NGO resumes supply

Delhi-based non-government organisation Ekta Shanti Foundation on Tuesday resumed supplying food to more than 2,100 government primary and middle schools in five districts, including Patna, six days after it suspended its services following the midday meal tragedy in Saran.