One of the vehicles burnt in the fire at the centralised kitchen in Rohtas on Tuesday. Picture by Sanjay Choudhary

Around 2,000 students of various government schools in Rohtas district could not be served the midday meal on Tuesday after the centralised kitchen at Dehri-on-Sone was gutted in the morning.

Police said a major fire broke out in the centralised kitchen of a non-government organisation in New Diliyan, around 135km southwest of Patna.

The non-government organisation has been assigned to cook the meal and deliver it to the government schools of the district.

Utensils, foodgrain and two vehicles that were used to transport the meal from the centralised kitchen to the schools were gutted in the fire.

The fire personnel fought for more than an hour to douse the flames. However, no casualty was reported.

Dehri-on-Sone Town police station house officer Ranjeet Singh said the fire was detected at 5am when the meal was being cooked in the kitchen.

The boiler was on and the employees were on duty, when they suddenly noticed the fire, which might have been caused because of a short circuit.

Brajesh Kumar, the in-charge of the Delhi-based NGO, said most of the government schools were closed on Tuesday because of Diwali and Chhath.

However, Urdu primary and middle schools were opened and the students couldn’t get the midday meal.

Of the 12,000 students in the district, the NGO provides meal to 6,000 on a regular basis, Brajesh said.

“The fire personnel assessed the loss of property in the fire,” he said, adding that it would take a few days to resume the supply properly.

Rohtas district magistrate Sandeep Kumar R. Pudakalkatti has ordered a probe into the incident.

“The sub-divisional officer of Dehri, Mohammad Shahid, has been assigned the probe and asked to submit a detailed report on the incident at the earliest,” he told The Telegraph.

Earlier, the station house officer and other officials of the district administration visited the spot and took stock of the situation.

Twenty-three children had died and several others had fallen sick after consuming the midday meal at a government school in Saran district’s Gandaman village under Masrakh block in July.

The principal of the school, Meena Devi, and her husband, Arjun Rai, were booked in the case.

The incident, stated to be a fallout of criminal negligence on the part of the cook and the school authorities, had hit the headlines and exposed anomalies prevalent in the midday meal delivery system in the state.