September 14 was just another day for Rama Devi, a Class X student of the Telangana government’s Ashram school for Scheduled Tribe girls in Mannanur, located 140 kilometres south of Hyderabad, in Nagarkurnool district. In the evening, she sat down to dinner in the hostel mess. The menu featured the typical fare of the area: rice, ivy gourd curry, and sambar. Soon, she got an excruciatingly painful stomach ache.
Yellamma, the night guard for the residential school, rushed to the girl writhing in pain. But even before she could do anything, the student collapsed on the veranda outside the mess hall. Headmistress-cum-hostel welfare officer Mangamma was not available on campus, and all the teachers had left after duty hours. Yellamma wasted no time taking Rama to a government hospital 200 metres away.
What initially appeared as an isolated incident soon escalated into a full-blown crisis, as student after student reported sick. Passers-by watched in disbelief as 216 of the 470 hostel inmates were rushed to hospital. Of those, 20 were admitted to the intensive care unit of the government hospital at Achampet, around 16 km away.
The diagnostic tests did not suggest any serious ailment, and within two to three days of medical treatment, all of them recovered. Anguished, the parents refused to send their children back to the hostel immediately, and the majority of the other students, traumatised by the incident, were also taken home.
Headmistress Mangamma, who was absent on the night of the incident, was suspended by the government.
In a disturbing twist, a similar incident, albeit on a much smaller scale, took place in an ST girls’ hostel in Miryalaguda town of neighbouring Nalgonda district the same evening.
Three students complained of difficulty in breathing after dinner, leading to another frantic run to the hospital. They were discharged the next morning. “One student complained of breathlessness. Others had stomach pain. The precise reasons for their sickness are yet to be ascertained,” says hostel warden Ahalya, quoting doctors.
The two incidents are part of a wave of alleged food poisoning cases reported from various government-run schools and hostels in Telangana over the past two weeks, igniting a collective outcry by parents, community elders, activists, and concerned citizens, who are demanding not just answers, but also concrete actions to ensure the health and safety of students.
Menu mishap or dirty water?
What caused the mishap at Mannanur hostel is yet to be ascertained. “We conducted different medical tests relating to blood, urine, and blood pressure on the girls who were admitted to hospital. There was no trace of any element suggesting food poisoning,” says Nagarkurnool District Medical and Health Officer Dr. Sudhakar Lal.
Sources say hostel authorities had served boiled chickpeas to the girls as an evening snack a couple of hours before dinner.
While Dr. Lal says, the students would be subjected to a few more tests once all of them return to the hostel to further ascertain what triggered the sickness, a visit to the ST girls’ Ashram school reveals there is more than a student health exam that is needed.
There is not a single drinking water filter in the hostel. The pipeline under Mission Bhagiratha, Telangana’s State-wide drinking water supply project, is connected to a plastic water tank of less than 1,000 litre capacity. The 470 students, teachers and all other staff members have to depend on this water stored in a plastic tank. On that fateful day, when students fell sick, the drinking water supply was disrupted.
“Students had no option but to use the lone hand pump (groundwater) for drinking water. We cannot rule out the possibility of that groundwater being unfit for consumption, as the rusted hand pump was not in use for a long time,” a teacher, requesting anonymity, shares.
Equipment and utensils used in the kitchen, located within an old walled structure in an open ground, were unclean. The 470 students are accommodated in 12 dormitories that allow little scope for sunlight and ventilation. “In other words, it is overcrowded,” concedes a hostel staff member, unwilling to be identified.
The staff maintain that the building originally was a hostel, but the government turned it into a residential school as part of a policy decision taken nearly seven years ago. However, full-fledged facilities were not extended to the residential school. None of the classrooms have chairs or benches for the students. “Whenever we raise the issue about students sitting on the floor from morning to evening, the usual rhetoric of top officials is that the furniture is on the way,” says another staff member in a hushed tone.
Even the ST girls’ hostel at Miryalaguda, visited by The Hindu was found to be worn out and overcrowded. While the hostel has a water filter facility, the Ashram school, housed in a new building, has no protected drinking water supply system.
Dining distress
On September 11, just three days prior to the harrowing incidents at Mannanur and Miryalguda, nearly 70 students of the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya residential school in Bheemgal, Nizamabad district, were hospitalised due to suspected food poisoning. Two of them were shifted to Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad as their condition worsened, though they were eventually discharged.
Again, on September 16, at least 30 inmates of the BC welfare residential school for girls in Manchal of Rangareddy district, which has a total student strength of 634, on the fringes of Hyderabad, complained of uneasiness. Of them, six, who had vomiting and diarrhoea, were admitted to a government hospital by the staff.
Let alone securing quality food and shelter, the government has failed to provide basic amenities like an adequate number of bathrooms and toilets for students, says Guru Teja, a private company employee, who is using the Right to Information Act to raise questions on social issues.
For 624 students of the social welfare residential school at Wyra in Khammam district, there are only 40 toilets. “As per the norms, there must be 49 more. There are many such BC welfare hostels that lack such amenities. In Telkapally of Nagarkurnool district, there are just 10 toilets as against the required 66. All this information is available on the government website,” says Teja.
HC, police intervene
In August, Teja filed a PIL petition in the Telangana High Court alleging that the State government was not adhering to guidelines issued by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) for hostels of educational institutions for children (see info box).
A bench of the HC headed by Chief Justice Alok Aradhe directed the government to file a counter affidavit. Teja’s counsel, Chikkudu Prabhakar, filed an interim application in the backdrop of the rising instances of students taking ill in different government hostels and sought specific instructions to authorities to improve the conditions.
After hearing his contentions, the HC instructed the government counsel to file a report within two weeks, complying with the instructions contained in Chapter IV of the Guidelines of the NCPCR.
The outcome of the HC’s direction will be known on October 6 when the matter comes up for hearing again, but complaints continue to pour in over quality of food served in government hostels.
On September 25, students of Telangana State Model School at Mujahidpur of Kulkacharla mandal on the outskirts of Hyderabad approached the principal and complained that the food being served to them was not as per the menu and was, in fact, unfit for consumption. As the students resorted to vociferous protests, the matter reached the local police station.
After interacting with the students and the principal, police concluded that the complaint was genuine. They arranged a meeting of all stakeholders to resolve the issue, making this a unique example of police intervening to address the grievance of hostel students.
The issue, however, is still unresolved — one group of the village backed the present cook, Ambadas, who gets food prepared by hired workers. The other group supporting the student wanted him removed. Since they could not arrive at a consensus on the matter, Bhagyalaxmi, principal of Telangana State Model School—it is a day school, and food is served as part of the mid-day meal programme—convened a meeting with the parents of the students. They have decided to engage local women self-help groups to prepare the meal. The proposal has been sent to higher-ups for approval.
Call for 24x7 vigilance
Former IPS officer and Telangana Bahujan Samaj Party president R.S. Praveen Kumar, who served as Secretary of Telangana Social Welfare Residential Institutions Society for nearly a decade, says authorities should dig deeper into causes of the alleged food poisoning.
“There should be round-the-clock vigilance in all hostels as there is a possibility of receiving groceries of poor quality. We used to return loads of rice to the district administration whenever the supplies were found to be of poor quality,” recalls Kumar, who is known for ushering in impactful changes in the State-run hostels.
According to him, proper maintenance of the grocery storerooms is key; unclean and inadequately protected rooms are an invitation to rodents, he asserts.
Panic among parents
Back-to-back suspected food poisoning incidents reported from different parts of the State have left parents concerned. At the Mannanur school, only 70 of the 470 students were present on campus on September 27.
“My daughter, Nikitha, helped other students reach the hospital on September 14 night. But she collapsed at the hospital a day later while attending to them,” says Seetharam, a resident of Appaipally village of Lingala mandal. “My wife and I stayed by her side at the hospital for a couple of days and then took her home. But eventually, we had to send her back to school. What happened was a nightmare, no less,” he adds.
When over 200 students of the school fell sick, headmistress Mangamma failed to show up, while village sarpanch Nenavath Sriram and other locals rose to the occasion, mobilising ambulances and any vehicle available to shift the girls to hospital. “The previous night, when three students were shifted to hospital after they complained of stomach pain, Mangamma went to meet them. However, she did not turn up at the hostel on September 14 night when a far more chaotic situation prevailed,” Nagarkurnool Tribal Development Officer Kamlakar Reddy says. Taking a serious note of her absence during such a crisis, the government suspended her.
“Suspension is not the solution. Serious supervision by top officials of the outsourced employees and the catering contractor’s works is crucial,” says Telangana State United Teachers Federation general secretary Chava Ravi. He suggests that the suspected nexus between the catering contractor and hostel staff needs to be snapped to ensure quality food for students.
But even as the food safety debate rages on, Thirupathamma, the new headmistress-cum-hostel warden officer of Mannanur Ashram school, is on the job of bringing students back to campus. “Our teachers are going around the villages convincing parents to send the girls back to the hostel,” she says.
(EOM)
INFOBOX - NCPCR guidelines for hostels, schools
Sufficient safe drinking water: water filters or RO should be installed at multiple locations on premises for easy access to kitchen, dormitory, recreational rooms etc.
Warden may also check food quality on day-to-day basis
Every institution to have first-aid kit and all staff be trained in handling first-aid
150 ml of milk to be served to healthy children and 500 ml of milk to sick children every day
Regular health check-up of children at least once every quarter by a registered medial practitioner
Clean and fly-proof kitchen and separate area for washing utensils
Cleaning of kitchen slabs, floor, and gas after every meal
Clean and pest-proof store for maintaining food articles and other supplies
Bathrooms to be built in 1:10 ratio and toilets in 1:7 ratio
For medical check-up:
If any deficiencies are observed in children during health check-up, menu should be prepared accordingly to meet nutritional deficiencies
Sick children should be provided special diet according to doctor’s advice
Medical record of each child to be maintained on basis of medical check-up and required medical assistance extended
Medical records should include details of weight, height, sickness or treatment and other physical or mental problems of student
.
