The human resource development ministry has made it mandatory that a teacher of the school will taste the food before it is served to the students in view of many incidents about children dying of eating contaminated food served under the mid day meal scheme mostly due to the negligence of the authorities. Union Minister of Human Resource Development in its meeting held on 15th October, 2014, constituted a committee under the chairpersonship of the Joint Secretary of the concerned Bureau for finalizing the guidelines on Food Safety and Hygiene under the Mid Day Meal Scheme.
The guidelines are part of an effort to ensure basic standards of food safety and hygiene in school kitchens. These guidelines address both the operational as well as infrastructural aspects for ensuring food safety and hygiene. The broad guidelines will help the States and the UTs to focus more intensively on the safety aspects of procurement, storage, preparation, serving, waste disposal of food items as well as issues of personal hygiene of students and those involved in cooking and serving of food.