Midday Meal Scheme 1995: More Than Just A Meal!

Soorya Subbu
Policy Update

Introduction

The Midday Meal Scheme is a government programme called Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM-POSHAN). The school meal program aims to serve nutritious food to all the children studying at government and government-aided schools. The Midday Meal Scheme was started from 15th August, 1995 throughout India, but the first initiative was in the state of Tamil Nadu in the early 1960s, started by former Chief Minister K. Kamaraj. It was initially started under the name National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) to provide education for all children and increase the literacy rate in India. It was started to offer children food and education, so that no child would have the option to choose between the two.

In 2001, all state governments were asked by the Supreme Court of India to bring this programme into government and government-aided schools within 6 months. Many children who were not sent to school due to poverty and various other reasons were then sent to school for free nutritious meals for the day, along with education. There was a rapid increase in the number of school-going children with the implementation of the Midday Meal Scheme in India.

Functions

The National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) 2006 guidelines suggested a plan where the government can use the help of community support and promote public-private partnerships for executing the programme. This guideline helped the government to partner with not-for-profit organizations to implement and provide free and nutritious midday meals to students.

The Midday Meal is cooked as per the guidelines of the central government from time to time. Except on local and government holidays, the midday meal is prepared and served to all the students. It makes sure that every child between classes I to V gets 450 calories and 12 grams of protein, whereas 750 calories and 20 grams of protein for children in classes between VI to VIII for a minimum of 200 days.

The programme states providing only cooked nutritious food to the students, but a few schools that implemented this scheme later chose to provide “dry rations” to their students who had at least 80% attendance, which refers to the provision of uncooked rice or wheat of 3 kgs. A few states and Union Territories provide their students with one egg per day, whereas it is opposed in many states due to social and religious groups that push for vegetarian meals.

Students who are anemic are provided with supplementary nutrition items to improve their deficiencies. Vitamin A, iron, and folate tablets and deworming medicines were given to each and every student as mentioned under the school health programme of the National Rural Health Mission. Under the concept of Tithi-Bhojan, this scheme has been encouraged to provide nutritious and healthy food on special occasions and festivals. This helps the children to connect more and develop a feeling of equity by sitting together and eating the same food, and a sense of belonging towards the community.

Performance

The Midday Meal Scheme has shown many positive impacts on children, such as solving hunger to a certain extent at least once a day, poverty, illiteracy, child labour, and malnutrition. It has increased the classroom attendance rate and reduced hunger cues and dropout percentage in schools. The scheme is now seen as ‘state charity’ and associated with poverty rather than as a civic responsibility and for education.

One major reason behind this scheme was to encourage children to study and educate themselves. This showed a drop in child labour and illiteracy, whereas increasing basic primary education. The central government also helps with funds to the state governments and makes provisions for the construction of kitchen sheds. The central government also suggested that ‘Dalits, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes’ should get more priority in the appointment of cooks and helpers. The centre provides 60% of the funds, while the states provide 40%. Apart from this, there are NGOs, international organizations like CARE, UNICEF, FAO, and other institutions and private parties that volunteer to help with either ingredients or provisions, or educational learning.

Nutritional gardens are set up in schools by the government to promote first-hand experience of nature and gardening to the students. This has helped the schools in harvesting their own produce as additional micronutrients.

In drought-affected areas, the Supreme Court announced that midday meals shall be provided even during summer holidays. Quality safeguards were also key areas of focus. Better infrastructure, improved facilities such as safe drinking water, and closer monitoring of regular inspections to safeguard the quality of the meals provided to the students. To bring transparency and accountability, social audits have been made compulsory in all the districts.

The Midday Meal Scheme also attempts to achieve social fairness by providing a shared dining space for various socio-religious and economic groups. It was initially well established in the state of Tamil Nadu, and then slowly in all of the southern states and union territories of India, with more grace and competence. The northern states are still lagging behind in quality and execution.

Challenges

One of the first challenges that this scheme faced was to implement this at such a vast scale across India. For many children, it is the only meal of the day that they eat. Also, the Midday Meal Scheme serves only the students who attend government and government-aided schools, whereas a large share of the children in India attend private schools. Though the government has taken serious efforts to eradicate hunger issues in India amongst children, the problem of child hunger still persists in India. Many children are underweight, and child malnutrition is higher in India than in Sub-Saharan Africa.

A serious challenge of this scheme is to make sure that the meals cooked are prepared with caution. A small mistake while cooking can lead to disastrous incidents that cannot be reversed. One example would be the deaths of 23 children in Chhapra, Bihar, in 2013 due to poisoned midday meals provided by the school. The northern states of India continue to face many challenges in providing good quality food to the students when compared to the southern states of India. Many children in rural areas are not enrolled in school yet, and educating them is still a challenge to the state governments.

Conclusion

It serves 120 million children in over 1.27 million schools and Education Guarantee Scheme Centres across India. In recent times, many state governments have also started including millets in their midday meals to enrich the nutritional level of foods served to the children. The Midday Meal Scheme is the largest of its kind in the world. India’s Midday Meal Scheme has helped educate a generation of poor school-going children and has phenomenally transformed their lives and made a huge impact on the nation’s hunger and literacy rates.

References

“India’s Mid Day Meal Scheme”, Akshaya Pātra- Unlimited food for education. https://www.akshayapatra.org/indias-mid-day-meal-scheme/
Md Asraul Hoque, December 2023, “Mid-Day Meal Scheme in india: Current Status, Critical Issues and Challenges”, Research Gate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376673979_Mid-Day_Meal_Scheme_in_India_Current_Status_Critical_Issues_and_Challenges
Shashi Tharoor, August 12, 2013, “Feeding Young Minds”, Project Syndicate- The World’s Opinion Page. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-chhapra-tragedy-and-india-s-free-school-meals-b y-shashi-tharoor
Shifa Naseer, August 30, 2019, “The mid-day meal story”, India Today. https://www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/story/the-mid-day-meal-story-1593268-2019-08-30
“Transforming India’s Nutrition with Mid- Day Meal (PM-POSHAN) Scheme”, IBEF- India Brand Equity Foundation. https://www.ibef.org/government-schemes/mid-day-meal-scheme

About the author: Soorya Subbu is a research intern at the Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), with a master’s degree in international Studies and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. Her areas of interest include international relations, public policy, analysis and global affairs.

Acknowledgment: This article was posted by Saniya Verma, a researcher at IMPRI.

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