TGSWREIS to engage students to check food quality and hygiene

Hyderabad: The Telangana Social Welfare Residential Institutions Society (TGSWREIS) secretary Dr Alugu Varshini has found a way to put a check to the adulteration of food, pilferage, and to ensure quality and accountability in the entire food supply chain process in the gurukuls from the coming academic year.

In a circular issued to all the institutions being run by the society on May 23, she ordered constitution of diet monitors, mess monitors, and hygiene monitors from among the students studying in 8, 9, 10 and 11 classes.

A total of 33 students will be assigned different duties under the above categories of work towards the end of every month, to perform their duties in the month that follows.

Every month the set of 33 students will change, with one student assigned the work for a month only for one month during the 10 months in an academic year.

Eight students from class 10 will be the diet managers for the entire month, who will be responsible for checking the delivery of food from the storage to the kitchen for quality.

They will check for the quality and quantity of provisions / perishable items to ensure there is no foul smell, insects, rotten items, adulteration or any abnormality. The delivery shall be done only 2 times a day. Once in the evening at 5 pm for breakfast and Lunch (for the next day) and again at 1.30 pm for snacks and dinner (for the evening).

These students will also be responsible for placing the indents and distributing the raw ingredients to the kitchen, by maintaining registers for the purpose. In case of any shortfall in the supply of any items, the students can contact the call center with their calling cards through ‘Phone Mitra,’ to report it to the administration in the society’s head office immediately.

There will be 16 students from Classes 8 and 9 who will be the mess monitors for a month.

Their duties include checking if sufficient kitchen and cleaning staff are available, whether the cleanliness is being maintained while cooking, quantity and if the quality of the provisions supplied is as per the provision slip generated for the day.

Nine students from Class 11 will act as the hygiene monitors for the month, who will be ‘monitoring’ the cleaning of kitchen/ dining/ hand wash area, and will supervise the wastage disposal.

One of these 9 students will be the monthly ‘mess leader,’ who will monitor the overall activity of the entire team of 33 members.

There will be teachers assisting these monitors, but will have no business in interfering with the students’ roles.

Every teacher has also been given some responsibility in this process, including the vice-principal and the principal. The teaching staff will only be guiding the students to learn management and monitoring of the food supply-chain.

The details of each and every monitor and staff have been drawn-out with specific timings, so that there is no confusion.

All the principals have been instructed to act accordingly, and the zonal/ multi-zonal officers have been directed to check the registers during their visit to any of the society’s schools.

“It has come to our notice in multiple occasions that certain contractors have been dumping low-quality food in huge quantities all at once at our schools. With the checks now in place where the students will regulate the flow of food supplies, issues like this will be prevented,” notes Alugu Varshini.

She also believes the leadership initiative will help them learn kitchen management, stock taking, storage and indent making, maintaining hygiene in food preparation and service, and the management of the entire food supply chain, which will be helpful in their future.

“A student in any of these teams will be spending at the most half and hour to an hour during the day for a month. The maximum time spent in a month can’t exceed 30 hours. The student who served in a role for a month will not have to repeat it for the rest of the year, as the next month a new team of 33 students will replace them,” she said.

Just like the students, each of the teachers will have a rotation of their roles during the academic year.

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