On October 20, Eleuterio Anastasio Carneiro from Galjibaga wrote a letter to The Goan detailing how a contractor for the mid-day meals at his children’s school supplied bhaji with pao at St Anthony’s High School in Galgibaga. What was unusual was that the pao that was the size of an egg (see accompanying picture. What was even more interesting was that the contractor supplied the students of standards five to eight with regular bread (weighing 59 grams) while students from standards one to four got much smaller loaves (weighing 13 grams).
When the contractor was interrogated by the school on the size of the bread he stated that the regular baker had a death in the family and so someone else was asked to supply the bread. The reason why the pao was so small was because the bakers had to work within a budget of Rs 1 per loaf. What was surprising was that despite the story being published in The Goan, no action was taken till date.
It was on July 31 that the chief minister Manohar Parrikarpromised to revamp the mid-day meal scheme for school children but nothing haschanged so far. When approached by The Goan, regarding the complaint by aconcerned parent about the size of bread given to students, the Deputy Director(planning) Anil Powarhe claimed that such instances were very common ascontractors had to face hardships due to recent increase in the cost offlour.
However he stated that that he would initiate inquiry intothe case. “I am not taking the side of the contractor, but it is practicaldifficulty as the contractor has supplied the specified nutritious meal as perthe rates fixed in 2008. This however was never revised.”
