Midday Meal Scheme
![Children being served midday meal under the scheme in Nagaland]float-right The Midday Meal Scheme, officially redesignated as Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) in 2021, is a centrally sponsored program of the Government of India that delivers free cooked lunches containing specified caloric and protein content to over 100 million children attending government, government-aided, and local body primary and upper primary schools on working days.[1][2] Launched nationally in 1995 as the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education to combat classroom hunger and promote universal elementary education, the scheme evolved from earlier state-level initiatives dating back to 1925 in regions like Madras, with the objective of boosting enrollment, attendance, retention, and nutritional outcomes among schoolchildren, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds.[3] Empirical evaluations indicate that the program has significantly increased school enrollment by up to 22 percentage points in beneficiary areas and enhanced learning achievements, as measured by standardized test scores, while also yielding intergenerational nutritional benefits through improved child health metrics.[4][5][6] However, implementation challenges persist, including inconsistent food quality leading to health incidents such as contamination-related illnesses, infrastructural deficiencies, and administrative hurdles like funding delays, which have undermined efficacy in certain locales despite overall positive causal impacts on attendance and academic performance.[7][8]Historical Background
Pre-Independence Roots
The origins of school meal programs in India trace back to localized initiatives in the early 20th century, primarily within British-administered provinces, aimed at mitigating child malnutrition amid recurrent famines and poverty. In the Madras Presidency, the first documented effort began on November 16, 1920, when the Madras Corporation provided simple tiffin (snacks) to students in a corporation school in the Thousand Lights area of Madras city, spearheaded by local leaders to combat hunger and promote attendance among underprivileged children.[9] This voluntary program, funded through municipal resources without central government support, represented an early response to the nutritional deficits highlighted by famines such as the 1899–1900 event and subsequent droughts, which had severely affected child health and school participation in southern India. By 1925, the Madras Corporation Council formalized and expanded the scheme, approving proposals to supply midday meals to underprivileged students in select schools, marking a shift toward structured feeding as a tool for social welfare during the colonial era.[10] Similar localized experiments emerged elsewhere: in 1928, Keshav Academy in Calcutta introduced compulsory midday tiffin for boys to address urban poverty and low enrollment; and in 1942, the Bombay municipal administration launched free midday meals in primary schools amid wartime shortages and malnutrition concerns.[10] These efforts, often driven by philanthropists, municipal bodies, and social reformers rather than colonial policy, lacked nationwide coordination or funding, relying instead on ad hoc donations and community contributions to provide basic staples like rice or porridge.[11] Missionary institutions also contributed sporadically, offering food alongside education in colonial-era schools to attract poor children from marginalized communities, though such provisions were incidental to evangelistic goals rather than systematic nutrition programs.[12] Overall, these pre-independence roots emphasized famine relief and voluntary aid over entitlement, yielding initial boosts in school attendance among targeted groups—such as observed increases in enrollment in Madras pilot schools—but without rigorous evaluation or scalability due to fragmented implementation and resource constraints.[13]Post-Independence Central Initiatives
Following independence, state governments in India initiated midday meal programs to address child malnutrition and boost school enrollment, with Tamil Nadu launching a widespread scheme in 1956 under Chief Minister K. Kamaraj, starting as a pilot in Ettayapuram and expanding to cover over 1.3 million children by 1960 through community and government funding.[14] Kerala implemented similar efforts in the 1950s and 1960s, providing cooked meals in select schools via local panchayats, achieving near-universal coverage in primary schools by the mid-1980s.[15] These state-level successes demonstrated increased attendance—up to 20% in Tamil Nadu—and nutritional improvements, influencing central policy discussions on scaling such interventions nationwide.[16] The National Policy on Education (NPE) of 1986 recommended integrating nutritional support, including midday meals, into primary education to enhance enrollment and retention, particularly among disadvantaged groups, as part of broader efforts like Operation Blackboard for infrastructural improvements.[17] This policy marked an early central endorsement of meals as a tool for universal primary education, though implementation remained largely state-driven with limited federal funding until the 1990s; by the mid-1980s, only Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat, and Puducherry had universalized cooked meal programs using state resources.[16] Central pilots in the late 1980s focused on dry ration distribution in drought-prone areas, covering thousands of schools but yielding modest enrollment gains due to inconsistent supply chains.[15] In 1995, the Government of India launched the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education on August 15, initially in 2,408 blocks across 21 states, providing free food grains at 100 grams per child per school day for classes I-V to encourage attendance without mandating cooked meals.[18] By 1997-98, the program expanded to all blocks, reaching approximately 47 million children and distributing over 1.2 million tonnes of rice annually, later increased to 300 grams per child in 2001.[19] Early evaluations noted coverage of millions but limited nutritional benefits, as dry grains were often resold or inadequately prepared due to lacking kitchen infrastructure in over 60% of beneficiary schools, prompting gradual shifts toward cooked meals in subsequent years.[20]Supreme Court Mandates and Legal Evolution
In the public interest litigation People's Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 196 of 2001), the Supreme Court of India recognized the right to food as integral to the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution, directing the conversion of existing food security schemes into enforceable entitlements.[21] On November 28, 2001, an interim order mandated that all state governments provide cooked mid-day meals to children in classes I to V in every government, government-aided, and local authority primary school within six months, replacing dry rations where previously supplied.[22] [10] This directive shifted the Midday Meal Scheme from a discretionary welfare measure to a justiciable obligation, with the Court appointing commissioners to monitor compliance and report periodically.[21] Subsequent interim orders reinforced phased implementation, requiring states to achieve full coverage in primary schools by the 2002-2003 academic year and addressing deficiencies through nutritional guidelines and infrastructure support.[23] By 2003, most states had transitioned to cooked meals, covering an estimated 80-90% of primary schools, with enrollment data indicating rapid uptake.[24] The Court extended oversight to upper primary levels (classes VI-VIII), culminating in national directives for their inclusion by the 2006-2007 academic year, resulting in cooked meals reaching approximately 120 million children daily across primary and upper primary grades by mid-decade.[25] [26] Compliance reports filed with the Court documented near-universal provision in government schools by 2007, though challenges like supply chain irregularities persisted in some regions.[19] The scheme's legal framework evolved further with the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which enshrined education as a fundamental right under Article 21A and integrated nutritional support, including mid-day meals, to boost attendance and retention.[27] Section 19 of the RTE Act permitted schools to organize mid-day meals, aligning with the PUCL entitlements and delegating monitoring to school management committees for community oversight.[28] This linkage reinforced the Court's vision of nutrition as a prerequisite for effective education, embedding the Midday Meal Scheme within a broader rights-based ecosystem while maintaining judicial review for enforcement.[29]Program Framework
Entitlements and Nutritional Standards
![Children being served food under the Mid-day Meal Scheme][float-right] The Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) scheme entitles children in government, government-aided, and local body schools, from Bal Vatika (pre-primary) to Classes I-VIII, to one hot cooked meal per school day, provided in approximately 12 crore beneficiaries annually.[30] This coverage extends to special training centers under the National Child Labour Project, ensuring nutritional support aligns with the National Food Security Act, 2013 mandates.[30][31] Nutritional standards require meals to deliver minimum caloric and protein intake differentiated by class level: 450 calories and 12 grams of protein for primary (Bal Vatika to Class V), and 700 calories and 20 grams for upper primary (Classes VI-VIII).[30] These norms, derived from cooking 100 grams of food grains, specified pulses, vegetables, and oils, promote balanced diets with micronutrients supplemented through convergence with health programs.[32] Post-2013 revisions under NFSA emphasized fortified foods, such as double-fortified salt with iron and iodine, and incorporation of nutri-rich cereals or millets to enhance nutritional quality without altering core calorie-protein benchmarks.[30] Specific food entitlements per child per school day are standardized as follows:| Component | Primary (Bal Vatika to Class V) | Upper Primary (Classes VI-VIII) |
|---|---|---|
| Food grains (rice, wheat, or nutri-rich cereals) | 100 grams | 150 grams |
| Pulses | 20 grams | 30 grams |
| Vegetables (including leafy) | 50 grams | 75 grams |
| Oil and fat | 5 grams | 7.5 grams |