The device will help mid-day meal auditors test food fed to schoolchildren across India
The device will help mid-day meal auditors test food fed to schoolchildren across India
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If Amandeep Arora, Shreya Bhattacharji, Saumyajit Chatterjee, Saurabh Jain have their way, mid-day meals in the country's municipal schools would soon be healthier, safer and more nutritious.
Four students of the KJ Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research from diverse backgrounds like management, architecture and public service, have come up with a plan for a food-safety testing kit. 
Saurav Jain (second from left), Amandeep Arora (first from right) and SIMSR students of managment while testing the Swach kit
Named Swach, the kit will establish an auditing process to ensure the safety of the government supported mid-day meal served to schoolchildren throughout India.
The four Somaiya students are at the Acara Summer Institute in Bengaluru with four students of The Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, who teamed up with them to work on Swach.
The kit will be ready by July 15 and will be brought to the city in August.
The kit is one of the four Indian entries that won the prestigious Acara Challenge scholarship of $5000 (Rs 2.23 lakh) at the Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota, on May 16.
"We started the project in January and completed it within five months. We visited the municipal school in Cheetah Camp in Chembur to taste the mid-day meal being served there.
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While it tasted okay, we realised how difficult it must be for an auditor to check mid-day meals in several schools. Our kit will give results in 24 hours," said 26 year-old Arora.
Co-creator Bhattacharya said, "This product will help to test mid-day meals given to students and we hope this will bring relief to parents, who can rest assured that their children are eating good food."
How does Swach work?
The testing kit will address two major types of tests pathogen tests (E-coli/Coli) that causes gastroenteritis, urinary tract infections, and neo-natal meningitis, and toxins test
That causes nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramping and diarrhoea.
The pathogen test will cost Rs 80 and swabs provided with the kit can conduct 100 tests.
The toxin text will cost Rs 560 and swabs provided with the kit can conduct 25 tests.
The swabs can be replenished after they are exhausted.
The students are also seeing if they can test the food for nutritive content and moisture as a further value proposition. Amandeep Arora will visit Madurai on Friday to pitch the model to the Iskcon Foundation.
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