Mid Day Meal

The Mid Day Meal Scheme aims to feed students in school from class 1 to 8 with the aim to (i) provide nutrition (ii) increase school enrollment and retention, and (iii) provide food security. It is the biggest school lunch programme in the world with 120 million children being fed. It is administered by the Ministry of Education and is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (meaning expenses of the scheme are distributed between the Centre and the State). It has now been subsumed under the PM POSHAN Abhiyaan.

India's poor people are unable to send their children to school as children work as labourers to earn money for the household. Neither are children able to get education and nor do they get nutritious food hence getting stuck in a cycle of poverty and malnutrition. The lunch at school scheme was launched first in Tamil Nadu and then slowly spread in other states. It was then adopted by the Central Government as well.

Mid Day Meal Scheme is part of India’s Nutrition Policy. It is based on the 'life cycle approach' which focuses on providing nutrition to mothers and children at a formative time to ensure healthy adults. It is key to ensuring that poor children in the country are able to get food, nutrition and also good education.

• MDM Scheme is key to achieve India’s vision of Kuposhan Mukt Bharat or Malnutrition Free India as per Vision 2040 released by the NITI Aayog.
• Under the National Nutrition Strategy 2017, MDM scheme is a direct/ short term method to achieve nutrition supply to children.
• It will help India achieve its Sustainable Development Goals, 2030: SDG2- Zero Hunger and SDG 4 of Quality Education.

• The National Food Security Act, 2013 provides that mid day meal should be provided. Further there are Rules under this Act called the Mid Day Meal Rules 2015 which give detailed guidelines for meeting the nutritional standards.
• India has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Child in 1992 which obliges the government to provide “adequate nutritious food” to the children.
• The Supreme Court in 2002 in the PUCL Case recognised the right to food as part of Right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Article 47 is a directive to the Government to make laws to improve nutrition of the people.
• Recently, the PM POSHAN (Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman) Scheme was launched which expands the scope of MDM Scheme

Concept of providing lunch at school is common in least-developed and developing countries. In India, it first began at state level before the Supreme Court (SC) in People’s Union for Civil Liberites (PUCL) Case recognised the right to food and directed Central Government to implement it nationwide.

1. In 1995 the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) was launched.
2. In 2001, SC gave directions to State Government to provide school lunches. Now, children were given hot food and not just dry ration. All children in government and aided primary school were served hot meals for atleast 200 days containing nutrition of 300 calories and 12 gram protein daily.
3. In 2004, for the first time food was provided during summer break in drought affected areas.
4. In 2006, scheme expanded to include students upto class VIII and came to be called ‘National Programme of Mid Day Meal in Schools’.
5. Since then, meal content is revised based on updates on nutrilitional norms.
6. In 2018, PM POSHAN Abhiyan was launched which is an extension and expansion of the Mid Day Meal Scheme.
   1. It is an advanced integrated scheme to target nutrition of child and mother during prenatal and post natal stage. It tracks nutrition levels of children on the Poshan Tracker
   2. Extends provision of nutritious food for Bal Vatikas (for children in pre-primary schools just before class 1).
   3. Provides fortified grains(meaning food grains with enhanced nutrtions) from godowns of Food Corporation of India to the schools.

1. Rights Based: right recognised in the National Food Security Act, 2013 for children upto age of 14 for nutritious food.
2. Centrally Sponsored: With 60% of funding coming from the Centre.
3. Extensive Territorial Coverage: All schools run by local bodies, Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS) centres, Alternative and Innovative Education (AIE) centres, government and government aided schools. During summer vacations, even drought affected areas are covered.
4. Nutrition Targetting: With Calorie (450g for Primary and 700g for Upper Primary) and Protein (20 gm for Primary and 40 gm for Upper Primary) intake targets specified.
5. Comprehensive Financial Coverage: The financial allocation to schools includes not only the cost of food grains but also other costs like transport, cooking cost (salary for cooks, gas, oil) and includes costs for MME (Management, Monitoring and Evaulation of the scheme). It includes one time costs for setting up Cooking Sheds and the subsequent repair/ redevelopment every 10 years.
6. Food Preparation: The food is either made on school premises or distributed from a central kitchen. In the centralised distribution there is improved surveillance and checks on food quality, however it becomes cold by the time it reaches the students. The decentralised model improves access to hot meals however there have been serious concerns over the quality and regularity of such meals being provided.
7. Monitoring Mechanism:
   1. Tiered System: Review and inspection at all levels from school (School Management Committees), village (Village Education Committees), state (State Level Steering–cum-Monitoring Committee headed by the State Chief Secretary) to national level (Empowered Committee, headed by Minister of Education). SC and the UNICEF also have reviewed the scheme.
   2. Food Tasting: by adults before it is fed to students.
   3. Display of Information:
      1. At central level on an online portal like Poshan Tracker.
      2. At school information about local review committe members, number of students fed, food menu and food utilised should be mentioned in a prominent place.
   4. Management Information System & Automated Monitoring System: States can develop IT tools for improved monitoring of the scheme.
   5. Lab Testing: of food samples.
   6. Social Audit: is required to be done under the National Food Security Act, 2013 by stakeholders of the policy (parents and students) to check the records with actual ground implementation of the policy.
8. Grievance Redressal: States & UTs have the responsibility to develop and make toll free helplines available for public to reach out on.

While milk isn't officially part of the government-provided school lunches under the MDM program, individual states and union territories have added milk products, eggs, kheer, daliya as well. Some states, like Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Puducherry, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, go even further by using their own resources to provide additional items like milk and fruits based on regional availability and demand.

1. Eases lives of working mothers enabling greater women’s participation in the workforce.
2. Improved nutritional and learning outcomes for children like better focus on studies due to hunger being satisfied.
3. Attracts children from marginal and disadvantaged groups like lower caste, tribals and girls which leads to improved socialisation.
4. Enrollments in general have gone up in schools.

1. Caste based discrimination: in cooking of and even distribution of food. However, the Supreme Court in PUCL Case stated that preference should be given to dalit and schedule tribe groups for preparation of food.
2. Corruption and misdirection: budgetary allocation and even food grains are misused by officials. Irregular supply of meals.
3. Contaminated and unsafe meals: a lot of children have fallen sick or died due to unhygienic food.
4. Child hunger persists in India: In the 2023 Global Hunger Index, India ranks 111th out of the 125 countries. There is need to set up MDM Scheme and also add additional measures.
5. Falling Budgetary Allocation: Central government allocation reduced by Rs 1200 crores, year on year.
6. Delayed transfers to States: there are often delays in release of installments from the Centre impacting implementation at the local level.

MDM Scheme has transformed lives of poor families in India. It is an entitlement for all students uptill class 8th, under the National Food Security Act to get free lunch meals to meet their statutorily mandated calories requirement. It is addressing not only the immediate nutritional needs of millions of school children but also contributing to broader societal goals of education, gender equality, inclusivity and poverty alleviation. However, the scheme's success hinges on transparent and efficient implementation. Improved monitoring and technological use to minimise human intervention and corruption is must. Now that it has become part of the POSHAN Abhiyan a wider net is being cast to ensure holistic development through a life cycle approach.