Kitchen Gardening for Mid-Day Meal by a Bengal School Wins Hearts

The teachers and students of a girls' school have taken on an unusual effort to arrange for the supply of veggies for mid-day meals by producing them at a garden on the school's roof at a time when West Bengal is drowning in choppy political waters over the mid-day meal plan.

All facets of society have praised the innovative project carried out by the instructors and students at Santoshpur Rishi Aurobindo Balika Vidyapith, which is located outside of Kolkata. This was essentially the brainchild of the school's headmistress, Sarbani Sen, according to a teacher connected to the institution.

As a result, the programme began in 2019 on the school's two roofs, the first of which is 500 square feet in size and the second is of 1,200 sq ft. The garden was made by first building bamboo structures on the roof, which were then filled with dirt.

The budget provided for the mid-day meal was paltry at best, according to the source. This led the headmistress to stress over the quality and nutritional content of the food being served to over 300 students every day. Then, the headmistress came up with the idea of producing vegetables on the roof of the school. Moreover, Sen insisted that for producing vegetables, the teachers and students of the school would be involved and it would not ask for help from any outsider.

Therefore, the effort began in 2019 on the two school roofs, the first of which is 500 square feet in size and the second is 1,200 square feet. They started by building bamboo structures on the roof and then filling them with soil, the garden was constructed.

The place primarily produces common types including brinjal, ladies' finger, and pointed gourd. Seasonal veggies including carrot, bit, cabbage, tomato, and cauliflower are also grown here at the same time. They especially take pride in the fact that they don't use chemical fertilisers to grow these vegetables.

However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, vegetable production was halted for two years, in 2020 and 2021.However, as soon as classes returned as usual, regular vegetable production also began.

This program has definitely distinguished the school from all other schools.

The West Bengal mid-day meal program's implementation would be examined by a central field inspection team, the Union Education Ministry recently said.

The decision to send the central team is thought to have been made in response to the growing number of complaints about the unclean cooking process, including the discovery of lizards and cockroaches in the prepared meals. There have been reports of schoolchildren becoming sick from eating such contaminated food.