Students of the Government Primary School at Chennur village in Hunasagi taluk of Yadgir district, Karnataka, tasted the midday meal for the first time on Wednesday, August 23, thanks to the efforts of officials overseeing the implementation of the Midday Meal Scheme and the Department of Public Instruction.
Caste differences
According to sources, all arrangements were made to launch the scheme at the school in 2002. But the scheme failed to take off because of a disagreement over the appointment of an assistant cook between leaders of two castes in the village.
The issue led to a clash between members of the two castes in which a man was murdered. A case under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, was registered against the accused persons. The case continued for several years. The officials could not launch the meal scheme at Chennur because of these developments, the source said.
Neeradigi Eshwarappa, district midday meal officer of Yadgir district, and Chitrashekhar Degalmadi, district coordinator of Sarva Shikshana Abhiyan, went to Chennur a fortnight ago and met the leaders of the two warring castes.
Persuading the leaders
After a few rounds of talks, Eshwarappa and Chitrashekhar were successful in persuading the leaders to sink their differences in the interests of school children, the sources said.
Eshwarappa told The New Indian Express that the leaders of the two castes agreed to the decision to launch the scheme at the school on Wednesday. Accordingly, the scheme was launched in the presence of the leaders from the two castes. Of the 45 students, 28 were present and they tasted the specially-cooked meal.
Eshwarappa said he along with Chitrashekhar, in-charge BEO Chandrakant Konnur and leaders of the village too enjoyed the meal. Rice, sambar, eggs and bananas were served.
Eshwarappa said students and their parents expressed their happiness towards implementing the scheme in their village school.
The school has only one teacher who is also the headmaster and he will retire from service within a fortnight. In all, there are 1,079 schools in Yadgir district which are under the meal scheme.
Interacting with the officials, the students appealed to them to appoint at least two teachers to their school.
