A Grain For Thought: Reflecting On The Monitoring System Under PM POSHAN

Sakshi Kumar

Health has been considered an important parameter of development and the states have
worked relentlessly towards achieving the end of it. One of these policies is the PM
POSHAN or the Poshan Shakti Nirman Scheme, initially known as the National Programme
for Mid-Day Meals in Schools. 1 It was cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Economic
Affairs, chaired by honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the year 2021. The policy is
meant to provide one hot cooked meal to the students of class I-VIII in government and
government-aided schools. 2 Affecting nearly 11.80 crore children, this scheme aims to
increase not only enrolment but also eradicate classroom hunger and bring down malnutrition
among children. 3

It also includes a few guidelines for effective implementation of the scheme
known as the Poshan Shakti Nirman guidelines inclusive of the aspects: raw material
procurement, preparation, cooking, cleaning of cooking areas, personal hygiene, cleanliness,
and meal testing.

However, if we look at the outcomes delivered by the scheme, it raises a pertinent question:
does the scale of the scheme justify its quality? 4 concerns over food quality with reference to
reporting of gastrointestinal problems among the children because of food contamination
raise questions over the quality of the scheme. The same study also looks at the state wise
data of food poisoning reports among the children and found that state of Bihar has reported
nearly 100 cases of food poisoning in May 2025 alone!

The state also faces implementation issues. 5 A study from Bangalore pointed out that 1 in every 3.6 children are deficient in protein, the same study also states that the food which is served to the children should be as per their taste. Their findings also reveal that many students were in a calorie deficit, that is,they did not complete their required nutritional intake. These findings were of schools in the urban Bangalore.

6 A CAG report on the state of Andhra Pradesh released in 2023, mentioned that except four
schools, the other test-checked schools did not possess the appropriate weighing or the
measuring tools in addition that the quality control committees were not functional and the
intended monitoring mechanism was not maintained properly. 7 In the 2018 CAG report for
Gujarat, meals were found to be served cold. This was the time period when POSHAN
Abhiyaan used to be one of the flagship schemes of treating malnutrition and POSHAN
scheme was yet not approved.

These findings do not indicate funding issues as the PAB that is the Programme Approval
Board allocates sufficient funds to the states but it does point at the monitoring gap which
affects the quality guaranteed by the said schemes. This also indicates technical mismatch
requiring a genuine need to strengthen the monitoring lags that have been developing over
time.

As we established the monitoring gap, a great point with regards to the PM POSHAN is the
involvement of the community, encouraging the community participation. 8 The official site of
PM POSHAN mentions that the involvement of the mothers in Chattisgarh’s Baster district
has led to a significant improvement in the cooking and hygiene along with a decline in
teachers’ attitude towards absenteeism. In Uttarakhand, mothers have been appointed as

Bhojan mata and Sahayika in all primary schools. The government intends to involve the
mothers more in order to bring to them the fact of their serious involvement in order to ensure
quality of the meals provided to the children. The government carries out two types of
monitoring: field and desk monitoring. The desk monitoring includes the reports of
constitution of expert committee, quarterly progress reports, education secretaries meetings at
the national level however, what is concerning is that all of these guidelines, data is upto the
year 2014. As we come to the field monitoring, we look at the research studies uploaded by
the scholars, joint review mission reports, social audit reports.

However, the concern is the same, the data is not updated on the official portal itself. Also, it highlights another fact that inspite of a robust monitoring mechanism on the papers, with quarterly progresses, social audits, third party audits, school management committees, reports of malnutrition and quality issues still loom over.

This however does not mean that all is broken and nothing works. What could be done is to
update the data that is available on the portal, align the reports with the reality on the ground,
maybe, also look at other countries who might be following similar practices and look for the
provisions that might work well for India and make use of technology in the monitoring
mechanism. For instance, 9 in Maharashtra, supervisors for three different zones are appointed who are responsible for conducting checks, and warn the vendors of any malpractice.

They have also employed technology like face detection and food identification through image
processing. A policy is usually considered a success when its implementation and monitoring
are not stale. PM POSHAN is not a policy which is declining, it is merely a scheme that
needs to update its monitoring system to completely achieve what it guarantees.

Important References

About the PM POSHAN. (n.d.). Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM
POSHAN). Retrieved August 8, 2026, from https://pmposhan.education.gov.in/
About the PM POSHAN. (n.d.). Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM
POSHAN). Retrieved August 8, 2026, from https://pmposhan.education.gov.in/
Gala, P. S., & Hasija, V. (2025). Development, validation of PM POSHAN scale and
testing it’s efficacy for effective monitoring of the PM POSHAN Scheme.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CREATIVE RESEARCH THOUGHTS, 13(10).
https://doi.org/10.56975/ijcrt.v13i10.294693
Tulsyan, A. (2025). A Recipe for Reform: Strengthening Food Safety in PM-
POSHAN. ORF
K, S. M. P., Nagaraja, S. B., & D, S. M. (2023). Contribution of mid-day meal scheme
to students nutrition in Bengaluru, India: time to re-look. International Journal of
Community Medicine and Public Health, 10(8), 2845–2848.
https://doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20232386
Tulsyan, A. (2025). A Recipe for Reform: Strengthening Food Safety in PM-
POSHAN. ORF
Tulsyan, A. (2025). A Recipe for Reform: Strengthening Food Safety in PM-
POSHAN. ORF
Community Participation. (n.d.). Pradhan Mnatri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM
POSHAN). Retrieved August 8, 2026, from
https://pmposhan.education.gov.in/index.html#
Gala, P. S., & Hasija, V. (2025). Development, validation of PM POSHAN scale and
testing it’s efficacy for effective monitoring of the PM POSHAN Scheme.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CREATIVE RESEARCH THOUGHTS, 13(10).
https://doi.org/10.56975/ijcrt.v13i10.294693

Brief of the author

The author holds a Masters degree in Political Science from the University of Delhi and is
UGC NET qualified. She is currently working as a Social Science Teacher for the last two
years and is associated with IMPRI as a fellow in the Public Policy Youth Fellowship cohort
2.0.

Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.