The appalling incident of deaths of nearly two-dozen school-going children in Bihar raises concerns about safety of food provided by the government to the poor for free or at nominal rates.

Earlier this week, at least 23 children lost their lives after eating mid-day meals given to them at a school in Chhapra district of Bihar. The incident that took place due to presence of some foreign chemical substance in the food also led to hospitalization of another 80 children. The awful incident occurred just as the Congress-led UPA government is all set to announce the launch of its ambitious scheme to feed millions of poor people in the country.

The government's National Food Security Ordinance aims to provide an estimated 800 million poor people with 5 kilograms of grain at very nominal prices every month.

But, the recent school tragedy in Bihar highlighted the possible dangers of launching such as a massive food distribution program without implementing strict rules to monitor supplies and quality of the food.

Reetika Khera, a development economist as well as a social activist, said, "This terrible tragedy will hopefully serve as a wake-up call for them." Dipa Sinha, a Right to Food activist, said the mid-day meal tragedy was clearly the authorities' big failure in monitoring and accountability.

Experts are of the view that food security programs should be at the local level.