Parents refuse to allow schoolchildren to eat meals prepared by Dalit woman, DMK MP Kanimozhi intervenes

Speaking to indianexpress.com, Collector Senthil Raj said they have a centralised application that informs them how many students are having their breakfast at a school.

“Since the launch of the CM Breakfast Scheme, information about meal preparation and number of students dining everyday is being updated on an app by the cooking staff. We picked up the Usilampatti incident only through this app as just two of 11 students were having their breakfast. First, we sent Project Officer Magalir Thittam to examine the anomaly.  Then we asked Revenue Divisional Officer Kovilapatti to sort out the issue,” added the Thoothukudi district collector.

“The parents claimed they were not against any community but they did not want that particular cook to serve food to their children… The officials informed them that this amounts to discrimination. The parents have now given in writing that they will not stop their children from having breakfast at school,” he further said.

Kanimozhi, also had breakfast with the students. (Photo/X/@KanimozhiDMK)

Speaking to the local media, cook Muniya Selvi, who belongs to a Scheduled Caste group, said, “I was so disturbed. Even if the students want to eat, their parents are not allowing them to.”

A few days ago, a similar incident had happened at Karur. Collector T Prabhushankar then visited the school and warned parents that no caste-based discrimination would be tolerated. Like Kanimozhi, he too ate along with the schoolchildren.

Notably, the state government introduced the ‘Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme’ in all government primary schools to address nutrition deficiency among students. Chief Minister M K Stalin expanded the scheme on August 25 and claimed that around 17 lakh students from Classes 1 to 5 would benefit from it.

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