22 Indian schoolchildren die after eating contaminated meal

Angry street protests erupted in India’s eastern Bihar state yesterday after 22 children aged between eight and 11 years died after eating food provided free by their government-run primary school.

Officials said another 30 children were admitted to nearby hospitals once they started vomiting after consuming the meal of lentils, beans, potatoes and rice on Tuesday at the Masrakh village school, some 80km north of the state capital Patna.

They feared the death toll could rise as some of the children were in serious condition at a Patna hospital.

And as the death toll continued to rise, angry parents and locals armed with sticks and stones took to the streets of the nearby town of Chhapra yesterday, smashing vehicles and setting buildings ablaze.

Criminal negligence
They demanded action against government officials responsible for the incident.

This forced the local administration to suspend the official in charge of the free-meal scheme in the school and register a case of criminal negligence against the headmaster, who fled as soon as the children began fainting.

Television news channels quoted villagers as saying that the use of contaminated, foul-smelling mustard oil for cooking the meal could have resulted in the fatalities.

State education minister PK Shahi said preliminary investigations revealed the food may have contained traces of phosphate from insecticide in the vegetables, which were not properly washed.

India's midday meal scheme, covering more than 120 million children, is one of the world's largest school nutrition programmes.

Malnutrition

Launched in southern India more than two decades ago, it is largely an incentive for poor parents to send their children to school.

It is also part of an effort to address concerns regarding widespread malnutrition, but has been known to suffer from poor hygiene in many provinces.

According to the federal government, almost half of all Indian children suffer from malnutrition, with almost 44 per cent of those under the age of five being underweight.

According to the 2012 report by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute’s Global Hunger Index, seven per cent of these underfed children died of hunger before reaching the age of five.

India has about 160 million children under six years old and the prognosis for their future under the current circumstances remained bleak, various non-governmental organisations warned.

Meanwhile, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar announced a compensation of 200,000 rupees (€2,565) for each of the bereaved families.