Toor dal blues hit noon meals
The state is well stocked to serve good food to students,” said a senior official
Chennai: With Toor dal prices continuing to remain high, the trickledown effect of the inflated pulse economy is affecting the composition of government programmes like the mid day meal scheme. While canteens are looking for government sanction to make changes in their menu, schools are maintaining calorie count with other pulses.
For instance, Corporation schools in Chennai reports that Toor dal has been substituted for its ‘relatively’ cheaper cousins, Moong dal and Mysore dal to make sambhar and mixed rice variants out of it.
“Sambhar rice or Bisi bele bath is served once a week to school students. Though the supplies department ensures that high price of toor dal does not mean students miss out on it, on a few occasions we have received siru paruppu (moong dal),” said a corporation school headmaster, requesting anonymity.
Students in the corporation schools are served mixed rice varieties like curry leaves rice four times a week. Teachers maintain that serving moong dal is not all bad. Because ‘mixing it up’ ensures students’ protein intake is balanced. “As per prescription, one student is eligible to consume between 20 and 30 g of Toor dal in a week,” said another headmaster.
However, social welfare department officials said that toor dal supply has been quite steady and that the mid day meal programme was not hampered by it.
“We are receiving our supply properly and till date there have been no instructions to replace toor dal. The state is well stocked to serve good food to students,” said a senior official.
On the other hand, government canteen caterers have begun to slowly feel the pinch of high toor dal prices. One caterer who spoke to DC, on condition of anonymity, said that catering contractors are likely to approach and ask the government to allow them to introduce mixed rice variants, such as lemon rice and tamarind rice, as alternatives to full meals and sambhar rice servings.
“Till date, we have been procuring the toor dal at market price in the hope that the price rise would subside. It hasn’t and we are now faced with the prospect of incurring losses. Definitely, increasing price for meals is off the cards because it would cause trouble. So the only other option is to introduce other food varieties where use of dal in its preparation is minimal,” said the caterer.
In the three days since the government started selling toor dal at Rs 110 per kg at 96 outlets across the state, 40,000 kg have been sold on November 1 and 2. Speaking to DC, state minister for food, R. Kamaraj said, “After we began selling the dal at Rs 110, open market retailers too have started reducing their prices. The Central government has allocated us 500 tonnes of toor dal in the first phase, of the 1,000 tonnes requested by the honourable Chief Minister. We have also cracked down hard on hoarders and the CM has asked us to ensure that ration shops continues to sell toor dal at Rs 30 per kilo. The state is well stocked with dal ahead of Deepavali.”
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