Coimbatore Corporation will soon inspect schools and colleges within its jurisdiction to check the general hygiene standards. According to sources, the civic body has decided to take up the inspection following complaints of water contamination, food adulteration in education institutions and reports of students contracting acute diarrhoeal diseases, chickenpox, etc.
There were around 180 schools within the City Corporation limits and a good number of colleges.
The sources said that the Corporation would complement the Food and Drug Administration Department’s efforts by checking the general hygiene in the campus and particularly in the kitchen. The sanitary inspectors, who would be tasked with the job, would check the drinking water source for the education institutions, alternative source, if any, the place of storage, the hygiene in water tanks and water, method of sterilisation, place of storage of food, hygiene in vessels used for cooking food, etc.
The Corporation would also check the health of staff who cook the food – to see if they had undergone periodic health check ups, if they had taken de-worming medicines in the past six months, if they had been vaccinated, etc.
The sources said that the Corporation’s exercises included Corporation-run schools as well.
Noon-meal centresThe Corporation managed noon-meal centres in around 80 schools, where nearly 140 people worked.
If the Corporation found the institutions wanting in hygiene, it would not hesitate to initiate action under the Public Health Act, the sources said. They added the exercise included canteens in the institutions as well.
The Corporation officials in the school education wing said that the workers in the noon meal centres were given de-worming tablets and checked for good health in camp that was conducted six months ago, in the last academic year.
They added that for the Corporation noon-meal staff, it was a regular exercise.
