NMIMS mess food concerns escalate as students flag ‘fake’ paneer

As many as 170 students fell ill and at least 30 students were hospitalised after taking their meal at the campus mess last Thursday.
| Photo Credit: Representational Photo

A simple test by students of Pharmacy at SVKM’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS)-Hyderabad, at Jadcherla, revealed that the paneer they had been served in their campus mess was purportedly analogue or fake.

Huddled up as a student performed the test, the video shows cubes of paneer turning bluish-black from inside when tincture iodine is poured over.

Analogue, according to Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), in the dairy context, such as paneer, is when the product is compositionally altered with by way of substitution of their major milk constituents such as milk fat and milk protein with non-milk constituents like vegetable oil and fat or vegetable protein.

As many as 170 students fell ill and at least 30 students were hospitalised after taking their meal at the campus mess last Thursday. The students were initially being treated inside the campus on library and common floors, allegedly to suppress the issue, but were shifted to a medical facility when the local legislator intervened.

The students allege that the university administration is downplaying the severity of the ground reality, by concealing the actual number of affected students and describing it an isolated incident, which they say was “a direct consequence of prolonged administrative negligence”.

The initial list of victims documented by students on Thursday, shows that 29 victims were from Pharmacy, 77 from Law, and eight from Management schools.

But it was in January that an academic coordinator at the institute acknowledging that “there has been an increase in number of gastro-Intestinal illness since January 27” sent an advisory mail to the MBA batch of students on preventing and managing the illness.

The aggrieved students, in a written address to The Hindu expressed concerns about their declining confidence in the institute and also pointed that the administration, despite repeated appeals, did not investigate water quality, and now their latest findings on paneer.

“As the admin claims, 1,000 students did not eat in the mess on that day, and it is not an isolated incident. There are Engineering students who are day scholars, plus 300 MBA students are on an internship break. It is not 29 students who were hospitalised, the number fluctuated and rose on the three days,” a student, requesting anonymity, said.

Pro Vice-Chancellors Meena Chintamaneni and Abhishek Ranjan, along with others, who addressed the media on Saturday expressed suspicion that “27 of 29 students hospitalised belonged to one discipline” and said that a panel would investigate the incident.

On delays in shifting the students to a medical facility, the institute’s executives said local individuals were made aware and the matter was widely circulated even before the internal administration could take necessary action. The administration affirmed that the institution is committed to providing a safe and secure environment for all students and staff.

As of Sunday, the mid-term examinations of all semesters at NMIMS remain postponed. In addition, vide an e-mail communication, the administration has placed a ban on all food deliveries by vendors from outside, effective February 24, to prevent further health risks.