FIVE education officials have been sacked after primary school pupils in a remote mountainous county in central China were found to be getting only a small bun and carton of milk for lunch.
The miserly meal cost no more than 2 yuan (about 32 US cents), 1 yuan less than the national allowance.
Suode Primary School, in Hunan Province's Fenghuang County, is one of the beneficiaries of a charity project aimed at improving the diet of primary and middle school students in remote areas.
The "Free Lunch for Children" project was initiated by Deng Fei, a Phoenix Weekly reporter, in September 2011 and is now operated by the China Social Welfare Foundation.
The State Council announced its own rural nutrition program on October 2011, earmarking 16 billion yuan a year to feed 26 million students in 680 impoverished counties and cities, each of whom would get a free lunch worth 3 yuan every school day.
However, the more than 100 children at Suode Primary School were given just a small bun and milk, a volunteer teacher identified as Diaoya disclosed on her Weibo microblog.
"Is the combo worth three yuan? We all remain doubtful," she said. The school has three teachers and three volunteers.
Diaoya said the students had also been left hungry for two days when meals hadn't arrived, and the school had handed out expired milk on one occasion.
The news triggered a public outcry with many people suspecting that local officials might be in collusion with the company supplying the food, with funds being diverted from the free lunch program.
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