Kolkata: Starting Saturday, the Bengal govt will begin serving eggs in mid-day meals at schools to supplement the Iskcon veg meals. Self-Help Groups (SHGs) have been asked to provide the eggs.Following an internal meeting on Friday, it was decided that though initially boiled eggs will be distributed by the SHGs, in the long run, the dept will procure eggs and distribute them to schools that will boil and serve them to their students.The school education dept will arrange LPG connections or induction cooktops so that schools can boil eggs on-site. The animal resources development dept will be involved later to procure eggs at subsidised rates and distribute them to schools based on student counts. Additionally, the dept will buy utensils so that schools can prepare the eggs themselves.Since readying this entire set-up will take time, existing SHGs have been asked to deliver eggs using their own vehicles starting this Saturday. Eggs will be distributed twice a week, with the govt reimbursing the SHGs.An official from the school education dept stated, “Out of 1,951 schools in Kolkata, Iskcon is serving cooked midday meals to around 500, while the remaining schools continue with the existing system. SHGs do not need to make special arrangements to distribute eggs to these 500 schools, as eggs are already on their Saturday menu. This is a temporary measure to supply nutritional supplements to the children until schools have their own arrangements at place.”Following a govt order, Iskcon began delivering cooked midday meals on Aug 1 to 500 schools covering 44,000 students. The new system rolled out in a phased manner, providing vegetarian meals to these schools, while CM Suvendu Adhikari announced on the first day that boiled eggs would be distributed separately as a nutritional supplement. The new system will complete its first week this Saturday. Eggs will be provided twice a week, and the dept is now discussing with the SHGs to schedule an additional day for distribution.However, several SHGs are not fully satisfied with this temporary arrangement. A spokesperson for one of the groups said, “We don’t understand why the govt is using us as a stop-gap measure. In the last meeting, we agreed to provide boiled eggs despite facing financial constraints, as we are dedicated to this work and want to remain linked to it.”
