CALCUTTA, 20 February 2005 — In a country where millions go to sleep hungry, parents have warned the principal of a government-aided primary school not to serve lunch to their children.

The paradox is unfolding in Krishnanagar’s Vivekanand Primary School, 85 km from Calcutta, in communist-ruled West Bengal.

A Supreme Court order has made it compulsory for all government-aided primary schools to serve lunch to students so that they do not drop out. In most schools, the free midday meal is a magnet pulling young boys and girls to classrooms. It is paid for by the district administration from earmarked state government funds.

But an unexpected problem has arisen because 200 out of Vivekanand school’s 250 students are from well-to-do families. They bring their own lunch from home.

Recently, parents of affluent children told school authorities not to serve khichdi — an inexpensive dish of boiled rice and pulses — as they are used to pastries and noodles. They suggested to the principal, Bijoli Ray, to serve khichdi only to those children who cannot afford to bring lunch from home.

Their suggestion has angered not only Ray but district school inspector Birendranath Chatterjee and Nadia District Magistrate Rajesh Pandey.

Rajesh says that if wealthy parents do not want their children to have khichdi, they should send their offspring to private schools. But the problem is there is not a single decent private school in the area and parents have no option but to send their children to the state-aided primary school where free midday meal is compulsory under a Supreme Court directive to the West Bengal government.

According to the district magistrate, the free midday meal scheme is running without a hitch in over 2,000 schools in the district. Pandey even suggested to the protesting parents of 200 affluent children to pool their resources and foot the bill for a better meal than khichdi which all children, including the underprivileged 50, could relish.

But the suggestion was not accepted, pitching the administration against parents who do not want their children to have what they call “substandard khichdi”.

Rich parents charge the school authorities with wasting khichdi daily as the majority of children refuse to eat it. With both sides digging their heels in, there is no solution in sight yet.