In Gujarat, number of mid-day meals falling, but spending on scheme rising: here’s why

The meals were provided to children of Classes 1-8 in 32,266 government schools across the state as of May 31, 2025, the government said.

The information was provided in tabular form by Education Minister Pradyuman Vaja in the Budget Session of the Assembly that concluded last month in response to an unstarred question from the Congress MLA from Jamalpur, Imran Khedawala, who asked for data on “midday meal centres functional till May 31, ߩ children who benefitted from these meals yearwise since 2022-23, till the said date, and the yearwise spending on these meals”.

Officials told The Indian Express that the increased spending on the scheme is on account of rising input costs, including the cost of kitchen supplies, during this period.

Neha Gupta, Joint Commissioner, Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) Yojana, said one possible reason for the decline in the numbers of takers or beneficiaries of the mid-day meals could be that more children are now carrying their food to school from home.

“The mid-day meal is a supplementary diet. Most of the time children in the semi-urban and urban areas carry their tiffin from home to school,” Gupta said. “However”, she said, “in the rural areas students do take the mid-day meal”.

The Mid-day Meal Scheme, now known as PM-POSHAN, is the world’s largest scheme to provide free meals to children of primary and upper primary classes in government schools around the country. In 1984, Gujarat became the second state after Tamil Nadu to start the program, and the scheme was implemented in all states by the late 1990s.

“The mid day meal scheme that involves provision of hot cooked meals free of cost to school-children from Class I to VIII on all working days aims at increasing enrollment rate, reducing dropout rate and reducing burden of poverty on poor parents and caste discrimination in the society,” the Gujarat government says on its website.

Gupta said the expenditure on the scheme includes, apart from food, spending on “items like utensils, kitchen sheds, kitchen-cum-store areas”. “For instance, in the new items approved in this year’s budget are kitchen utensils as well as storage vessels,” she said.

The data stated in response to a separate question by Vansda Congress MLA Anant Patel revealed that the expenditure made to nonprofit organisations that provide meals on behalf of the government also increased during this period. In 2022-23, Rs 77.63 crore was paid to these nonprofits, a figure that rose to Rs 92.32 crore in 2023-24, and to Rs 144.88 crore in 2024-25.

In response to Patel on how many mid-day meals were outsourced to NGOs or private organisations, the minister provided a district-wise list of 3,012 schools that had outsourced the meals, covering 6,50,155 students. This number is included in the total number of students taking the mid-day meals across the state.