Telangana govt. mandates school officials to taste food before serving
Hyderabad: In a decisive step to protect students of government schools and hostels from food poisoning, the Telangana government now requires school officials to taste the food before it is served to students. Photographs documenting this process must be uploaded daily to a designated app.
The state government issued two orders on Thursday, constituting a task force committee and institution-level food safety committees to oversee food safety protocols. Chief Secretary A. Santhi Kumari, issuing the orders, stressed the importance of these measures in safeguarding the health of vulnerable groups and creating accountability mechanisms.
The task force committee should ensure food safety in government schools, welfare hostels, residential schools, anganwadi centres, hospitals and anganwadi centres and the institution-level panels should oversee food safety issues in cooking and serving food.
According to the orders issued by the state government, the task force committee will cover institutions under several departments, including Scheduled Caste development, tribal welfare, BC welfare, minority welfare, women development and child welfare, school education, and medical and health.
Its role will involve inspecting facilities, investigating food safety incidents, identifying the causes, and fixing responsibility for lapses. The findings are to be reported directly to the government.
The three-member committee will include the commissioner or food safety officer, the head of the institution concerned, or an additional director, and a district-level officer, such as a district welfare or education officer. This team will regularly visit institutions to ensure compliance with food safety protocols and respond promptly to any reported issues.
"The task force committee shall visit and inquire into all food safety incidents reported in any institute, identify the reasons and fix responsibility against the persons and agencies responsible for such incidents. They shall submit the detailed report to the Chief Secretary immediately," the orders stated.
The institution-level food safety committee, to be constituted by the collector, have been tasked with overseeing cooking and serving of food to prevent contamination and food-borne illnesses. The committee, consisting of the head of the institution and two staff members, have to inspect the store and kitchen before cooking every meal and ensure the quality of provisions and hygiene in the kitchen.
They should taste the food after every preparation only after which the students are to be served.
Every day, the committee shall take photos of the activities listed above and shall keep it in record, till the respective departments develops an app to load the same.
District collectors should ensure that mandal, divisional or district-level officers are appointed as supervisory officers for each institution. They too should visit the institutions, as far as possible, and before and after cooking, take photographs and share the same at district level.
Collector Orders Quality Food in Residential Schools to Prevent Food Poisoning
NIZAMABAD: District collector Rajiv Gandhi Hanumanthu on Thursday directed officials to provide quality food in residential schools and avoid food poisoning. All precautions should be taken before serving food to students, he said.
The collector made a surprise visit to Mahatma Jyotiba Phule BC boys residential school at Rampur in Dichpally mandal. He inspected the store room, kitchen and dining hall. He also verified rice, other essential commodities and mid-day meals.
