Students Skip School Lunch Without Onions

Mid-day meal workers say at ₹120 a kg they have dropped the vegetable, along with eggs from menu

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Soaring prices have led to the disappearance of onions and eggs from the mid-day meal served to students in government and Zilla Parishad High Schools (ZPHS) in the integrated Karimnagar district of Telangana for over a month now.

Mid-day meal workers removed them from curries and sambhar in the menu after onion prices shot up to around ₹120 per kg. Eggs too were off as they got dearer, at ₹6 per egg, in recent weeks. As school meals turned insipid sans onions, some students have been skipping them. Instead they carry packed lunches from home.

Until the change, the government included eggs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But at ₹6 a piece, midday meal workers could not budget for them and cut down servings to a maximum of two a week. The State government provides ₹4 per egg for students up to Class 8. Students in Class 9 and 10 are excluded.