The Tamilnadu government was ordered by the Madras High Court on Tuesday to give eggs to the parents of school going children along with the dry rations. The court also said that sanitary napkins must be provided to adolescent girls.
Ridiculing the Tamilnadu government for its stand that eggs cannot be distributed to students enrolled under nutritious mid-day meal scheme since it would affect social distancing norms, the court wondered if the State would shutdown TASMAC liquor outlets too for the same reason.
Quoting former Chief Minister K Kamaraj, who spearheaded the noon-meal movement in the State to bring children to schools, a division bench of Justice M M Sundresh and Justice R Hemalatha asked the government not to give reasons for not distributing eggs but to try and find a viable solution to provide them.
The authorities can utilise the services of school teachers, anganwadi staff and village health nurses to assess the number of families and their children who require raw eggs, it said.
When the case was taken up for hearing, the Special Government Pleader told the court that 71.59 lakh sanitary napkins had been distributed to 23.86 lakh girls and postnatal mothers through primary health centre (PHC) nurses between April and July.
Similarly, dry rations, in lieu of boiled eggs and other nutritional food provided to children during working days, were being handed over once a month to the children or their parents by asking them to visit the schools. The distribution was supervised by headmasters, he said. The reason behind Tamilnadu emerging as a leading State in the country in education is the various schemes implemented by the successive governments and ‘Saththunavu Thittam’ is the most important among them. Necessary steps should be taken to continue it without any hindrance, despite the challenges being posed by Covid-19.