July 18: The much-vaunted free meal offered to lure children to schools has turned poison for the students.

Across Bihar, several children came to school without plates, some others simply refused to have their lunch and the rest thought it better to skip school for a day or two in the aftermath of the Chhapra midday meal tragedy. Even an advisory issued by the government asking the headmaster or teachers to first taste the food failed to convince the children to eat.

“We have advertised in newspapers that cooked food should first be tasted by the headmaster or teacher of the schools before being served. This rule should be strictly followed and failure to implement it would lead to administrative action,” principal secretary, education, Amarjeet Sinha said.

The government has also asked schools to ensure that pesticides and fertilisers are not stored with the food. Sinha expressed the hope that the confidence of parents and children in the system would soon be restored.

But parents are taking no chances. Bhagalpur siblings Anand (8) and Sunita (5) did not bring their plates to school today, though they brought with them their slates and textbooks. The children have to get their own plates and bowls in which the food is served.

“We had mar bhar (rice and water) at our homes. We do not want to die or fall sick by consuming food given in schools. Our parents told us that we would die if we eat here,” said Anand, a student at the government primary school in Mundi Chowk in Bhagalpur town. School headmistress Kabita Patil said the students refused to eat their midday meal out of fear.

At another school in the district’s Nathnagar block, parents damaged an oven used for cooking the midday meal.

A junior official of Bal Vikash Evam Parjaybaran Sanrakshan Sansthan, an NGO in Bhagalpur, said only a handful of students were willing to eat the midday meal. The NGO supplies food to 146 schools in Bhagalpur town, 20 in Sabour, 29 in Kahalgaon and 18 in Naugachhia blocks.

Amarjeet Singh, the additional secretary in the Union human resource development ministry, was in for a shock at Bishunpura Primary School in Jalalpur, Saran district. Not a single child there was willing to sit down for their lunch at the school. The children told him that their parents had asked them not to accept any food given by the school.

In Vaishali district, the midday meal scheme — being run in 1,300 government schools spread over 16 blocks — has come to a grinding halt. Ekta Shakti Foundation, an NGO responsible for providing the midday meal in nine blocks, has already told the midday meal directorate that it was withdrawing its services fearing flaws in the delivery system that might bring a bad name to it. In the remaining seven blocks, the afternoon meal is not being provided because of protests by parents.

In Gaya, the midday meal has been suspended at several schools. Mungeshwari Ram Manjhi, the only teacher at Aerodrome Primary School which has 77 students from classes I to V, said the guardians refused to allow their wards to take the meal yesterday.

However, lunch comprising rice, pulses and vegetables was prepared at a primary school in Chaurhar. The school committee secretary, Asha Devi, who was monitoring the meal, said the guardians asked her and the teachers to taste the food first and then serve it to the children.