States: Tamil Nadu: Egg on the face

India Today
November 2,1998

TAMIL NADU
Egg On the Face

The Government's latest decision to dump 2.8 lakh 'rotten' eggs has left it open to ridicule.

By K M Thomas

Embattled Force It was not one of those innovative "egg-and-pit" races, the kind that is increasingly being seen on television. Nor was it someone's idea of making it into the Guinness Book of World Records. No sooner had the convoy of five trucks come to a grinding halt besides three huge pits -- one of them was 6 ft deep and had an area of 600 sq ft -- than the 10 men positioned around got down to work. It took them all day but by the time they were through, 2.8 lakh eggs had been offloaded from the trucks, thrown into the pits and destroyed.

The incident may yet enter the Guinness Book of Records but that was far from the minds of the Tamil Nadu revenue authorities who last week undertook the unique exercise at a village near Salem town to get rid of the eggs on the mere suspicion that they were rotten. The brainwave occurred when some children who were beneficiaries of the state Government's mid-day meal scheme run in various schools in the state were admitted to hospitals following suspected food poisoning. The Government first ordered the collectors of Nagercoil, Dharmapuri, Virudhunagar, Thanjavur, Tirunelveli and Salem districts to freeze the eggs supplied from cold storages in their districts. "We wanted to ensure that the contaminated eggs were not released into the market again," says Salem District Collector M. Nasimuddin. The only way out, everyone in the Government agreed, was to give the eggs a mass burial.

Nothing wrong except that there were howls of protests from poultry farm owners, who have suffered an estimated loss of Rs 25 lakh. Claiming that not all the 2.8 lakh eggs were rotten, they are challenging the wisdom behind destroying the large quantity of eggs without actually establishing whether they were the source of the food poisoning. In fact, samples of the eggs kept in Selvi Cold Storage at Salem which had been sent to King's Institute, Chennai, and the department of toxicology, Coimbatore Medical College, were found free of contamination. Moreover, the farmers argue, there was no foul smell when the eggs were destroyed. "If we had made a giant omelette with the destroyed eggs, it would have weighed no less than 125 tonnes," says one of them.

Chennai Veterinary College Dean R. Kadrivel reserves comment on the quality of the eggs but points out that even if the eggs were rotten, "the toxic content per 45 gram egg could not have exceeded 2 or 3 grams". Given that each child is given one egg, he adds, "the chances of developing instant sickness from its consumption are remote". The National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC), which monitors the procurement and supply of eggs, too is raising similar doubts. "The food poisoning could also have been from rice, dal or vegetables the mid-day meal centres had procured," says a senior NECC official. Giving a political twist to the issue, the AIADMK is accusing the Government of deliberately trying to malign the mid-day meal scheme, the brainchild of the late MGR.

The administration insists the eggs were contaminated because they were stored close to apples and citrus fruits. Convinced that it has taken the right step, it is even coming up with more innovative ideas to deal with the broken eggs. A project to cover the eggs with a layer of sand and make manure out of them is on the anvil. The eggs may or may not yield the expected 250 tonnes of manure, said to be rich in calcium, nitrogen, potash and phosphorous, but one thing is certain: the Government can ill-afford to be left with more egg on its face.

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