Rat in mid-day meal: Akhilesh urges UP govt not to play with lives of children

After a rat was found in the mid-day meal served to children at a government school in Muzaffarnagar, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday slammed the BJP government and asked it not to play with the lives of children.

"Due to corruption in 'mid-day meals' in Uttar Pradesh, sometimes 10 times water is added to the milk served to children while at other times a rat is found in the food cooked for them, due to which 9 children fell ill in Muzaffarnagar today. I request the BJP government to fill its belly elsewhere but not play with the lives of children," Yadav's tweet, roughly translated into English from Hindi, reads.

In what came as a shocking lapse, a dead rat was found in the Mid-Day meal cooked at a government school in Mustafabad Pachenda village in Muzaffarnagar in the state on Tuesday.

Nine children and a teacher, who had consumed the contaminated food, were immediately admitted to a government hospital after they complained of a severe headache.

Minister of State (MoS) for Primary Education Satish Dwivedi had said that strict action would be taken against all those who are found guilty.

Last month, authorities at a government primary school in Sonbhadra had been accused of serving its students diluted milk under the mid-day meal scheme.

The authorities had allegedly added one litre of milk to a bucket full of water and served it to as many as 85 children.