Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme (2022): Tamil Nadu’s Journey From Breakfast To Better Learning

Policy Update
Angela Rajeev

1. Introduction

J Jeyaranjan, economist and vice-chairman of the State Planning Commission, answers the charge that Tamil Nadu hands out “free stuff” with data. He credits decades of welfare policy for the fall in the state’s poverty rate from 35 to 4 per cent, and he points to a gross enrolment ratio of 51 per cent against a national 27 per cent (South First, 2022). The Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme (CMBS) carries that argument into the school morning.

It tests whether a free meal is consumption or investment, and whether feeding a child before class changes what the child learns. In July 2026 the scheme was renamed the Perunthalaivar Kamarajar Breakfast Scheme (The News Minute, 2026a). This article keeps the original name, traces its growth, and asks whether the evidence so far supports the claims made for it.

2. Background

Tamil Nadu’s school meals form a long chain of institutional learning. Kamaraj resumed the mid-day meal in 1957, M. G. Ramachandran launched the Nutritious Meal Programme in 1982, and M. Karunanidhi added eggs from 1989 (The Wire, 2023). Each step answered a visible gap, and breakfast was the next one. A mid-day meal feeds a child who has already had to go through the hardest hours of attention on an empty stomach.

The scheme’s first order, issued on 27 July 2022, stated its aims. These were to bring children to school without hunger, reduce malnutrition, eliminate anaemia, raise attendance and ease the burden on working mothers (South First, 2022). It was launched on 15 September 2022 in 1,545 schools for 114,095 children at a cost of ₹33.56 crore (The Wire, 2023). The timing was politically charged, because the Union government had been urging states to shun a “freebie culture” (South First, 2022). Seen against this history, the scheme is an extension of a settled state tradition and not a departure from it.

3. Functioning

The scheme serves breakfast on school working days. It was designed to supplement the mid-day meal, not replace it. Each child receives 150 to 200 grams of cooked food plus 60 grams of sambar. The food is made from semolina, wheat, rice, millet and pulses, with local vegetables (Janata Weekly, 2023). The expanded menu includes upma, kichadi and pongal, with millet-based preparations twice a week (Hussain, 2026).

Expansion came in steps.

After a preliminary phase, the government extended the scheme on 25 August 2023 to 29,463 more schools, bringing coverage to 17 lakh children in 31,008 schools (The Wire, 2023).

A further extension covered 2,430 schools and about 3.5 lakh more children in August 2025 (Shukla, S., 2025). The 2026–27 Budget, presented by Finance Minister N. Marie Wilson, extended the scheme to Classes 6 to 8 (The News Minute, 2026b). The social welfare department oversees expansion, and the Chief Minister reviewed it with departmental officials in June 2026 (ETV Bharat, 2026). The design is lean. It adds one more meal to existing school kitchens and routines, and that is both its administrative strength and, as Section 6 shows, a source of strain.

4. Performance

Coverage and outlay. The scale-up has been fast. The Class 6–8 extension adds about 15.30 lakh students in 15,454 schools and ₹217.63 crore, taking the allocation to ₹724 crore in 2026–27 (Kalinga TV, 2026; Press Trust of India [PTI], 2026). By the commission’s interim count, 20.73 lakh children in 34,987 primary schools were covered before this extension (State Planning Commission [SPC], 2024b). Simple arithmetic on these figures gives an implied outlay of about ₹2,900 per child at the pilot, ₹2,400 in 2023 and ₹2,000 in 2026–27. These are the author’s calculations and mix partial and full years, so they are indicative only. The pattern is nonetheless plausible, since pilots carry fixed costs and shared kitchens lower unit costs.

What the commission found. The commission compared the first 1,543 schools against neighbouring schools within one to two kilometres. In 1,319 of them attendance in January–February was higher than in June–July the previous year (The Wire, 2023). The interim study covered 100 schools and 5,410 children. It found that over 90 per cent of beneficiaries showed better memory, attention, interest in learning and sports, and punctuality (SPC, 2024a; DT Next, 2024). It also reported better handwriting, reading and speaking (SPC, 2024b).

How strong is this evidence? The design is reasonable but has limits. The attendance comparison spans different seasons.

The sample was restricted to schools with enrolment of at least 25 and attendance above 75 per cent, leaving 72 beneficiary schools mapped to 414 in total (The Wire, 2023). Such schools may differ from the weakest ones, where hunger bites hardest. The strongest result, “over 90 per cent improved”, rests on perception.
Teachers and caregivers observed behaviour; no test scores were published. A further point is that school attendance in Tamil Nadu was already 96.9 per cent for ages 6–14 (People’s Archive of Rural India, 2021). The scheme therefore cannot be raising enrolment much. Its realistic contribution lies in how alert a child is and how reliably the child arrives on time.

5. Impact

The first impact is the one the numbers cannot show. A Chennai headteacher said, “More than 70% of the students do not have breakfast at home” (The Wire, 2023). Where a household’s mornings are rushed by work and poverty, a school meal moves a basic need from the family to the state. That is why the scheme names working mothers among its beneficiaries (South First, 2022).

The second impact concerns nutrition, where the picture is mixed. A 2024 evaluation by the Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission, covering approximately 5,300 children across 100 government primary schools, reported improvements in health and classroom engagement following the introduction of the Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme. Hospital admissions declined by 63.2 per cent and serious illnesses by 70.6 per cent. Classroom attention increased from 85.8 to 93.7 per cent, while assignment completion rose from 89.6 to 95.4 per cent.

School attendance also improved marginally, from 89 to 90 per cent (State Planning Commission, Government of Tamil Nadu, 2024). These figures predate the scheme. Breakfast aimed at anaemia has a target, but no published outcome yet shows whether it is being met. The next national survey will be the real test. Until then, the learning-readiness gains are credible but modest, and the health gains remain a hypothesis.

Third, the scheme has a wider impact on policy. Jeyaranjan’s argument that such spending is investment and not dependence gains force each time a scheme shows results (South First, 2022). That is perhaps why the expansion has continued across a change of government (The News Minute, 2026b).

6. Emerging Issues

An evidence gap. The interim findings are positive but rest largely on perception (SPC, 2024a). The wider questions of academic performance and nutritional status remain open. Because the scheme is now being extended to older children, the same questions must be answered for Classes 6–8, where attendance patterns and nutrition needs differ.

Fiscal weight. The allocation reached ₹724 crore in 2026–27 (Kalinga TV, 2026). A scheme this size competes with other priorities, and its political popularity makes it hard to prune but also hard to fund fully.

Last-mile delivery. The scheme depends on school kitchens already stretched by the mid-day meal. Independent monitors of that programme found delays of five to ten days in cooking-cost release in some schools (IIT Madras, 2015). In such cases the organiser sometimes paid for ingredients out of pocket (IIT Madras, 2014). A second daily meal multiplies these pressure points.

Continuity and identity. The rename within four years of launch shows how a scheme’s identity can shift with the government (The News Minute, 2026a). Rollout dates have also moved. The extension was scheduled for 17 September (The News Minute, 2026b) but launched on 22 September (PTI, 2026). The danger is not abolition but drift in funding, branding and attention.

Menu choice. Officials are examining non-vegetarian options for older students (Shukla, V., 2026). This raises nutritional benefits, since protein and iron are needed, but also questions of acceptability, cost and equity across school communities.

7. Way Forward

Firstly, the state must treat evidence as a permanent function. The full commission evaluation should be published, with test-based learning outcomes and health markers such as haemoglobin and growth alongside attendance. Comparisons should be made across the same seasons and including weaker schools. Independent universities should be invited to verify the findings. School-level monitoring data should be made public so that parents and legislators can judge whether better mornings are becoming better learning.

Secondly, delivery must be protected where it is most fragile, in the school kitchen. Funds should reach schools in advance by electronic transfer, so that no teacher or organiser spends personally to keep the meal going. Cooks and helpers need regular remunerations, safe equipment and hygiene training, now that two meals a day are prepared. Community audits and a simple helpline for headteachers would flag shortages before they reach the plate.

Thirdly, the scheme needs a durable institutional footing that survives changes of government and of name. A clear budgetary or statutory commitment would give schools and families certainty. Menus should be decided through nutrition advice, local food culture and parental consultation, with millets, eggs and other options introduced carefully. Linking breakfast to iron supplementation, deworming and health screening would make the programme a platform for child health and not only a meal.

References

DT Next. (2024). Report on TN CM’s Breakfast Scheme: Improvement in attendance, recalling lessons, listening to teacher’s instruction. https://www.dtnext.in/news/tamilnadu/report-on-tn-cms-breakfast-scheme-improvement-in-attendance-recalling-lessons-listening-to-teachers-instruction

ETV Bharat. (2026, June 15). Govt school breakfast scheme extended up to Class VIII in Tamil Nadu. https://www.etvbharat.com/en/state/govt-school-breakfast-scheme-extended-up-to-class-viii-in-tamil-nadu-enn26061506112

Hussain, S. (2026, September 22). From Kamaraj’s mid-day meal to Kamarajar breakfast scheme: Tamil Nadu’s long fight against classroom hunger. ETV Bharat. https://www.etvbharat.com/en/state/from-kamrajs-mi-day-meal-to-kamarajar-breakfast-scheme-tamil-nadus-long-fight-against-classroom-hunger-enn26092204925

Indian Institute of Technology Madras. (2014). 2nd half yearly monitoring report on mid day meal scheme in the state of Tamil Nadu, October 2013 to March 2014. PM POSHAN, Ministry of Education. https://pmposhan.education.gov.in/Files/MI%20REports/Yr_2013-15/MI-Repotrs-Oct-2013-Mar-2014_2nd/TN/2nd_MI_Report_IIT_Madras_TN.pdf

Indian Institute of Technology Madras. (2015). 4th half yearly monitoring report on mid day meal scheme in the state of Tamil Nadu. PM POSHAN, Ministry of Education. https://pmposhan.education.gov.in/Files/MI%20REports/Yr_2013-15/MI_Reports-Oct_2014-Mar-2015_4th/TN/4th_MI_Report_IIT_Madras_TN.pdf

Janata Weekly. (2023). Tamil Nadu extends acclaimed breakfast scheme to 29,463 more schools. https://janataweekly.org/?p=62216

Kalinga TV. (2026, September 22). Tamil Nadu expands free breakfast scheme to classes 6–8 from today. https://kalingatv.com/nation/tamil-nadu-expands-free-breakfast-scheme-to-classes-6-8-from-today/

People’s Archive of Rural India. (2021). National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) 2019–21: Tamil Nadu. https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/national-family-health-survey-nfhs-5-2019-21-tamil-nadu/

Press Trust of India. (2026, September 22). Tamil Nadu CM Vijay launches breakfast scheme expansion for classes 6 to 8 students. Careers360. https://news.careers360.com/tamil-nadu-cm-vijay-expansion-of-breakfast-scheme-for-school-children

Reserve Bank of India. (2024, December 9). Table 21: State-wise children aged 6–59 months who are anaemic. Handbook of Statistics on Indian States. https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/PublicationsView.aspx?id=22809

Shukla, S. (2025, August 21). Tamil Nadu expands Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme to 2,430 schools; to benefit 3.5 lakh more students. Careers360. https://news.careers360.com/tamil-nadu-chief-ministers-breakfast-scheme-mk-stalin-expands-2430-schools-benefit-3-5-lakh-more-students-telangana-canada/amp

Shukla, V. (2026, September 20). Tamil Nadu upgrades breakfast scheme for Class 6 to 8 students, eyes non-veg menu options. Careers360. https://news.careers360.com/tamil-nadu-breakfast-scheme-class-6-8-non-veg-menu-tn-govt-schools-naduperunthalaivar-kamarajar-cm-joseph-vijay

South First. (2022, August 1). Amid freebie culture debate, Tamil Nadu launches free breakfast scheme for schoolchildren. https://www.thesouthfirst.com/tamilnadu/amid-freebie-culture-debate-tamil-nadu-launches-free-breakfast-scheme-for-schoolchildren/

State Planning Commission. (2024a). Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme: Impact on children in primary classes in government schools. Government of Tamil Nadu. https://tamildigitallibrary.in/

State Planning Commission. (2024b). Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme: Impact on children in primary classes in government schools – Interim report (second phase). Government of Tamil Nadu. https://tamildigitallibrary.in/

The News Minute. (2026a, July 22). Tamil Nadu: School breakfast scheme renamed after “Perunthalaivar Kamarajar.” https://thenewsminute.com/tamil-nadu/tamil-nadu-school-breakfast-scheme-renamed-after-perunthalaivar-kamarajar

The News Minute. (2026b, August 5). Tamil Nadu Budget: TVK govt extends breakfast scheme up to Class 8. https://www.thenewsminute.com/amp/story/tamil-nadu/tamil-nadu-budget-tvk-govt-extends-breakfast-scheme-up-to-class-8

The Wire. (2023). Tamil Nadu extends acclaimed breakfast scheme to 29,463 more schools. https://thewire.in/education/tamil-nadu-extends-acclaimed-breakfast-scheme-to-29463-more-schools

About the Contributor

Angela Rajeev is a graduate in Political Science and History, with a minor in Economics, from Christ University, Bangalore. She approaches her research with a passion for gender, public policy, and geopolitics. As a Research and Editorial Intern at IMPRI, she works at the intersection of policy and culture while exploring issues related to governance, society and international relations.

Acknowledgements

The author extends sincere gratitude to the IMPRI team for their guidance and support along with the reviewers Ms. Aditi Bhuinyan and Ms. Nivedya for their valuable feedback and insights.