Ready for lunch?

The Indian government has made a commitment to provide a midday meal for every primary school child. Prodeepta Das, in words and pictures, examines what’s on the table

Providing free midday meals to its primary school children is one of the most ambitious initiatives India has ever undertaken on its road to a welfare state. The sheer numbers are staggering. In 2003-04, while total enrolment stood at over 105 million – almost twice the population of the United Kingdom – the number of children actually benefiting was around 56 million. The drive is central to the country’s endeavour to meet one of the Millennium Development Goals: universal primary education.

The then UK Minister of State for School Standards, David Milliband, visited Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh in October to see the scheme in operation. He was impressed by the kitchen at Uppal – run by Naandi Foundation and supplying meals to over 150,000 children in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad – which is one of a handful of public-private initiatives. After sampling rice and curry Mr Milliband was unequivocal about the quality. "It is a fantastic project," he said.

‘Midday meals’ is the popular name given to the national scheme launched on 15 August 1995 (its prosaic official title is the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education). A combination of factors made the programme possible: there was enough food; it was thought that a meal at lunchtime would benefit children; and the experts felt that it was important to link primary education with nutrition, health and the government’s Integrated Child Development Scheme. The objective was to "give a boost to universalisation of primary education by increasing enrolment, attendance and retention and simultaneously impacting on nutritional status of children in primary classes". Target groups for this purpose were all students in primary classes.

But the genesis of midday meals goes back much earlier, to 1925, when the Corporation of Madras introduced the scheme for school children. In 1956, the Chief Minister of Madras, K Kamraj, set up a ‘Poor Feeding’ programme. Five years later, American aid enabled all corporation and government schools in urban areas to be covered. And in 1982, the legendary chief minister of Tamil Nadu, M G Ramachandran, set up a state-wide scheme called the ‘Nutritious Meal Programme’.

However, support for the scheme has been far from total. Indeed, it has even proved necessary to seek the coercive power of the judiciary more. In a historic order dated 28 November, 2001, the Supreme Court of India directed all State governments to introduce cooked midday meals in primary schools within six months. Four years later, several states, including the more populous Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, have yet to comply. In another development in October 2004, the Supreme Court made it clear that under no circumstances should the funds allocated under the Integrated Child Development Scheme for midday meals be diverted to other schemes. Last April the Court directed the Central Government to increase the allowance for each child from one to two rupees. And in October, the Court rebuked the government: "We are shocked at the attitude of the Central Government in respect of giving nutritious food to all children".

Regional variations apart, achievements in midday meals provision are impressive. The 2001 Supreme Court ruling decreed that state governments must "implement the midday meal scheme by providing every child in every government and government assisted primary schools with a prepared midday meal with a minimum content of 300 calories and 8-12 grams of protein each day of school for a minimum of 200 days." Under the scheme, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) is directed to provide wheat/rice at the rate of 100 grams per student per day free of cost. Where cooked meals are not the norm, each student receives 3kg of food grains a month as long as their attendance rate is at least 80 per cent.

Organisational responsibilities are left to elected officials at the village level, called Panchayats and Nagarpalikas, in order not to take up teachers’ time and resources. They decide the type of food to be provided as long as it is wholesome and has the required calorific value. They, too, have the discretion to engage appropriate NGOs to deliver the programme, subject to approval from the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Support staff, such as cooks and assistants, as well as construction costs of kitchen sheds are paid out of the poverty alleviation scheme of the Ministry of Rural/Urban Development. The task of supervision is left to local Education Committees.

In every state where there has been a sincere commitment to the programme, tangible benefits have accrued. School attendance has gone up; there has been an appreciable increase in the number of girls coming to school and there has been a significant downturn in drop-outs. A survey conducted by the Centre for Equity Studies (CES) of the Delhi School of Economics points to a nexus between improved student enrolment and retention and the free midday meal. It found that between 2001 and 2003, enrolment in the states of Chhatisgarh, Karnatak and Rajasthan went up by 15 per cent, while in Rajasthan the increase was 18 per cent. Further, female enrolment in Rajasthan rose by 29 per cent. When I visited predominantly Muslim and Dalit (lower economic groups) areas of Rajasthan, I found schools well attended. "More parents are sending their children, especially girls, to school," said teacher Rajesh Khanna at Alwar Primary School. "Free school meals take a huge burden off their heads. It is a great help for widowed mothers. They can go out and work while the children are at school."

Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen is persuaded by the role of a midday meal in eliminating nutritional deficiency and social inequality: "Even if it does not lure people to get better education, every iota spent on it is worth it". At meal times, children sit together, irrespective of their social class or caste. At one school I visited in Orissa, some children were sharing the pickles they had brought from home with the others.

"We used to give out dry rations to children who had achieved at least 80 per cent attendance." explained Head teacher Bidyadhar Sahu. "This did have a positive impact. For the past year we are giving cooked meals to every child and this has not had the desired result. The allowance does not provide enough for us to give varied diet. But because children do not go home for lunch, widespread afternoon absences are a thing of the past."

In Karnataka, one of India’s software titans, Infosys, donated 10 million rupees to ISKCON to extend their Akshaya Patra (free midday meal scheme) and provide hygienic and healthy food. In Gujarat supplements of Vitamin A and Iron are given to the children at a cost of 16 rupees per child per year. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has decided to improve not only the quality of cooked food but also its taste. The new meal will include vegetable biriyani, rajma (kidney beans), chhole (peas), paratha and puri (special bread).

The midday meal scheme is an instrument of social change in another area, too. In Orissa, I found women given preference in employment as cooks and people from economically disadvantaged classes as assistants. This goes some way towards redressing gender inequality.

Ajit Tripathy, Development Commissioner for Orissa, is excited by the unfolding social change. "In the remote areas of the state, like the KBA (Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput) districts, the midday meals scheme is doing wonders. The very children who used to stay at home to help out or do remunerative work are now in school. With education, they will be able to break free from the poverty trap. Moreover, we have seen a significant rise in girls’ attendance. An evaluation by UNICEF points to improvement in excess of 35 per cent."

At present there is no uniformity in infrastructure. While in Andhra Pradesh, the renowned non-profit organisation Naandi Foundation has taken on the responsibility for centralised cooking, in other places cooking arrangements are left to local decisions. Some recent mishaps point to potential hazards. Kitchens in Sangam Vihar, Delhi were closed down because they were near open drains. At Sarai Sheikh, near Lucknow, parents complained that their children suffered from diarrhoea after consuming semi-cooked meals. In Tamil Nadu, a kitchen fire killed several children. Cooks and assistants need to be educated about health, hygiene and safety.

While there is a consensus on the benefits of free midday meals, some have been reluctant to embrace the scheme with open arms. The principal reservation is financial constraint. The CES study found that if all primary and secondary students received free midday meals, the cost would be 90 billion rupees annually as against the total education budget of 800 billion rupees. It may look unaffordable, but it is a small price to pay for a potentially monumental socio-economic benefit.

Seen in the perspective of subsidies to the middle classes (on electricity, water, cooking gas and higher education – totalling over 1200 billion rupees) and annual defence expenditure (700 billion rupees), the argument for the meals becomes even more compelling.