A viral video showing a cook diluting milk meant for government school children in UP has embarrassed the Yogi Adityanath government once again with officials, who usually cry conspiracy whenever confronted with evidence of corruption, acknowledging its authenticity.

The video, apparently taken by a gram panchayat member in Sonbhadra district on Wednesday, surfaced on Friday. It shows a cook mixing a litre of packaged milk to a bucket of boiling water. The diluted milk is then served to about 80 students, about half-a-glass each, as a part of their mid-day meal.

The video is yet another evidence of the mess that is the mid-day meal scheme (MDMS) in UP which has, according to the Union HRD ministry, logged the maximum number of corruption complaints in the past three years.

According to the state’s weekly MDMS menu, on Wednesdays students are served tehri and boiled milk. As per the scheme, for 100 primary level students, 15 litres of milk should be used and each student should be given 150 to 200 ml of milk.

The Salaibanwa Primary School, where the incident occurred, has 171 students, of which about 80 were present on Wednesday when the diluted milk was served. For 80 students, about 12 litres of milk would have been the mandated amount.

Sonbhadra district magistrate S. Rajalingam told The Telegraph Online that a case had been registered against shiksha mitra Jitendra Kumar who was in-charge of the mid-day meals.

“It is factually correct. However, it was an isolated incident which happened that day,” Rajalingam said over telephone.

“That day, a litre of milk was mixed with water by the cook, even though she wasn’t in-charge. Another teacher from the nearest school is in-charge of mid-day meals in this school,” he said.

The district magistrate said that Kumar had been booked under IPC section 408, used for criminal breach of trust arising out of his malafide intention.

“You must have seen that the video was made while it was being done which clears their intention,” Rajalingam said, suggesting a conspiracy against the administration.

The conspiracy theory of the state government doesn’t quite hold in the face of the growing number of corruption complaints that the mid-day meal scheme in Uttar Pradesh has attracted.

In September, another viral video showed students of a government school in Mirzapur being served chapati with salt as mid-day meal.

Instead of taking action against guilty government officials, the state administration was swift in filing a case against the local journalist who had recorded the video. Pawan Jaiswal, who was harassed for his expose, told The Telegraph Online that he was still fighting a legal battle.

Another incident in October, this time in Sitapur district, had left officials red-faced again. In a video shot at a primary school there, students were allegedly served rice with “turmeric water”.

The basic shiksha adhikari and district officials had later denied any wrongdoing, claiming students were actually served soya bean curry and that the video was taken after the students had eaten all the beans.

Ambedkar University professor Dipa Sinha, who has conducted extensive studies on mid-day meals, said the problems in UP were systemic and related to governance.

“I was watching the Sonbhadra video. It is coming out as if these women are eating away the money. Usually, this is not the case. These women are also a victims of the system,” she said, adding that it was the lowest and weakest link that always got punished.

She said often, funds were erratic and the women who run the kitchens were under pressure from the community and officials to keep serving meals.

Four days ago, minister of human resource development Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha, revealed that Uttar Pradesh had performed the worst as per number corruption complaints in the mid-day meal scheme. Of the 52 complaints in the past three years, 14 have been reported in UP.

Nearly 12 crore children were enrolled under the mid-day meal scheme during 2018-19, the HRD minister replied in another query.

Responding to yet another question, he had said, “A total number of 931 children were reported ill after eating mid-day meals in the country during the last three years,” but noted that it was the state government’s responsibility to ensure safe, cooked and nutritious mid-day meals.

Delhi, Jharkhand and Odisha were the only states that had no complaints in the past two years. In Jharkhand, ISCKON’s Annamrita Foundation-run mega centralised mid-day meal kitchens have been credited for the success of MDMS.

The Telegraph reported last year that after serving about 60,000 students in nearly 400 schools of East Singhbhum district, it had inaugurated a new facility that would serve mid-day meals to 63,000 children in West Singhbhum district.

Another ISCKON organisation, the Akshaya Patra Foundation, is one of the leading NGOs that provides mid-day meals in schools. The foundation claims to serve around 18 lakh students in the country.

According to the HRD ministry, 603 kitchens are operated by 367 NGOs to cover more than 40,000 institutions.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation, however, has been criticised for not serving eggs in mid-day meals. It has also been accused of “imposing religion” while refusing to use onion or garlic while cooking meals.