The Mid-Day Meal (MDM) program in India began in the 1960s but was expanded nationwide in 2001 under a Supreme Court order to provide school meals with 300 calories and 8-12g of protein daily. Over 100 million children now benefit. MDM has increased enrollment, especially for girls and disadvantaged groups. However, infrastructure is still lacking in many schools. Proper cooking facilities, utensils, water and fuel are needed. Community participation also remains limited. Going forward, the program aims to address nutrition quality and add health interventions, while preventing corruption.

1. Mid-Day Meals in India
Achievements and
Challenges

2. Brief History
MG Ramachandran extended midday
meals to all primary school in Tamil
Nadu
• Existed in Tamil Nadu since the
1960s
•In 1995, Government of India
implemented it as the National
Programme of Nutritional Support to
Primary Education
•Many states provided only “dry
rations” until 2001
•Cooked meals only provided in
Gujarat, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and
parts of Madhya Pradesh and
Orissa

3. The “Right to food” case*
On 28 November, 2001 the Supreme Court issued
the following order:
“implement the Mid-Day Meal Scheme by providing
every child in every government and government
assisted primary school with a prepared mid-day
meal with a minimum content of 300 calories and 8-
12 grams of protein each day of school for a
minimum of 200 days”
* Officially, “People’s Union for Civil Liberties vs Union of India and
Others,Writ Petition (Civil) No 196 of 2001”. See
www.righttofoodindia.org for more details.

4. MDM Implementation status in 2003
Source: Drèze and Goyal (2003)

5. Status today
• Beneficiaries
– All states provide cooked meals to all primary
school children
– In 2006, 130 million children got cooked food
everyday
• Costs per child per day
– Rs. 2.21 in 2004
– Rs. 3.06 in 2006

6. What students and parents say
about the MDM
• “The school bisi oota is as good as what
my mother cooks.”
• Roopa, a pupil of Standard 4.
• “My children say they like the food. In fact,
they actually like going to school now.”
• Bhagyamma, a Dalit housewife
Source: Parvathi Menon (2003), Frontline,V20(15).

7. Achievements
• Enrolment, retention and attendance
• Nutritional impact
• Socialization and Educational benefits
• Social benefits (esp. for women)
• Form of Income support

8. Enrolment, Attendance and Retention
• Enrolment: Big gains,
especially for girls and
children of other
disadvantaged groups
(SCs and STs).
•Attendance and rentention: Limited evidence on
improvement but measurement issues make it
difficult to capture these effects.

9. Nutrition: Quantity
• Prescribed food quantity
– 300 grams of grain & 8-12 grams of protein
– Increased to 450 grams of grain and 12
grams of protein in the 2006 Guidelines
• Is this adequate?
– Requirements of children aged 5 years are
very different from the requirements of
children aged 10 years.

10. Nutrition: Quality
• Depends on:
– Menu (plain boiled rice)
– Cooking practices
– Hygiene conditions (kitchens, drinking water)

11. Supplement or Complement?
• Menu is important – e.g., if children are given plain
boiled rice at school and parents stop feeding them at
home, then there will be a net loss.
• No clear evidence
yet in India, but..

12. Qualitative Supplement
• With the introduction of a varied menu,
recent research suggests that improved
menus have an impact.
• Improved menus meet up to 22% of RDA
as opposed to 11% where the old menu
was served
(Source: Chhindwara Study in Madhya Pradesh, Afridi, 2005)

13. Socialization and Health benefits
• Socialization
(Eating together)
• Overcoming caste
discrimination
(Denial of food to Scheduled
caste children, Segregated
seating, separate food/utensils
for children of different castes)
• Inculcating hygienic
habits
(Washing hands and utensils
before and after eating, eating
together)

14. Educational benefits
• Impact on learning:
– Eliminates classroom hunger - children able to
concentrate better as many children would come to
school on an empty stomach
– Makes school environment more fun

15. Educational benefits
• Can be realised if teachers are teaching
rather than organizing meals and children
are not made to help with cooking
“Preparing and distributing MDM to about 60-
100 children is like managing a wedding lunch
every day!”
Teacher interviewed by CUTS MDM survey in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan

16. Implementation
• Realization of benefits depended crucially
on adequate infrastructure being in place
– Kitchens, utensils for cooking and serving
– Cooks, helpers, organizers
– Drinking water, wood for fuel on/near school
premises
– Procurement practices

17. Infrastructure
• Importance of
infrastructure:
– Hygienic cooking not
possible without these,
esp. water
– Chances of disruption of
regular teaching
activities, esp. kitchens
and cooks
– Corruption in the system,
in the absence of proper
storage facilities
A “kitchen” in Cuttack district

18. Infrastructure
• No kitchens, no cooks, no
utensils, no water, when it
was operationalised in
2002
• Improvements since then
– Most schools have water
and utensils now
– Separate kitchens still an
issue

19. Overcoming implementation barriers
• Existing cases made learning possible
– Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka
• Increased political acceptability and
popularity
– Role of judiciary, media, public mobilization

20. Overcoming implementation
barriers
• Role of the judiciary
– November 28, 2001 order
– Supreme Court order on preference to Dalits in
appointment of cooks
• Role of public mobilization
– Action Day (8 April, 2002): Children lining up on
streets with empty plates demanding their meals
– Campaign in Jharkhand: Delegation of children met
the Chief Minister

21. Overcoming implementation barriers
• “Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan”, a central government
funded campaign for elementary schooling
provided funds for purchase of utensils
• Money for construction of kitchens provided
under another government programme
• Improved access to drinking water through the
Accelerated Drinking Water Supply Scheme

22. Community Participation
• Scattered instances of community
– parents contributed towards improving
menus, or purchase of utensils
– Self-help groups
– In urban areas, involvement of NGOs
• Main thrust from the government

23. Some Future Concerns
• Adding a health component: deworming, regular
check-ups, micronutrient supplements:
– The MDM provides a good opportunity to implement
widely accepted national programmes for iron and
Vitamin A supplementation.
– However, tremendous commercial pressure seems to
be building up to introduce zinc and other
micronutrients. The benefits of these need to be fully
established.

24. Some Future Concerns
• Corruption
Recent reports on pilferage of grain by
inflating enrolment records

25. Acknowledgements
This presentation was prepared by Reetika
Khera for a “Food for Education” seminar
organized by JUNAEB-WFP in Santiago, Chile
(11-13 June, 2007). For more information on
India’s Mid-Day Meal Scheme, please visit
www.righttofoodindia.org.
Photographs and map from Frontline (
www.flonet.com), Rama Lakshmi
(Washington Post) and Sohail Akbar