13th SOUTH ASIAN ECONOMIC STUDENTS MEET

Tribhuvan University, Nepal

AGRICULTURE, FOOD SECURITY AND HUNGER

Food Security at the Elementary Level : A Critical Analysis of

India's Mid-day Meal Scheme

Rohit James Joseph

B.A Economics, IInd year

St. Xavier's College-Autonomous,

Mumbai University, India

Abstract

Universalization of elementary education and combating malnutrition are two major global
challenges facing South Asia in the new millennium. The paper seeks to evaluate the multi-
pronged approach of the Mid-day Meal Scheme in ensuring nutritional security and
improving educational outcomes of future economic agents (school children) within an
Indian context and offers policy recommendations to improve quality and efficiency of its
service delivery. Based on a South-Asian perspective of school-feeding programmes
specially the MDM, it also advocates strong inter-regional trade and cooperation beyond
SAFTA and SAARC Food Bank for a food-secure, hunger free South Asia.

Research paper prepared for presentation at the 13th South Asian Economics Students' Meet
in the session "Agriculture, Food Security and Hunger" organised by Tribhuvan University,
Nepal in January-February 2017. I am grateful to Dr. Deb Kusum Das, Dr. Mihir Pandey
and Prof. Rahul Menon for their valuable guidance in the preparation of this paper. The
usual disclaimers apply. All errors are my own. Any feedback or comments would be most
welcome and may be sent at rohithjamesj@gmail.com.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction 3

2. Literature Review 5

3. Achievements of the Midday Meal Scheme 7

3.1. Eliminating classroom hunger

3.2. Nutritional supplementation

3.3. Intra household flypaper effect

3.4. Spill-over effects

4. Challenges and Concerns regarding the Midday Meal Scheme 9

4.1. The Bihar Tragedy

4.2. Midday Meal Scheme as a credence good

4.3. Inefficient utilisation and poor infrastructure

5. The Midday Meal Scheme in a South-Asian Perspective 11

6. The Way Ahead 12

7. Conclusion 13

8. References 14

Appendix 16

Table 1 : Latest Food Norms and cooking cost under the Mid-day Meal Scheme
Table 2 : Statement showing Annual allocation/ offtake of food grains (in lakh tons)
under the MDM scheme during the last seven years

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1. Introduction

Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access
to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences
for an active and healthy life (FAO, 2002). Food security is a complex issue and has evolved
over time to incorporate four key aspects- food availability, food access, food utilisation and
food vulnerability.

Despite high annual economic growth rates, South Asia's food security status is unique as the
region continues to house a large proportion of the global impoverished population, despite
being a major producer of food grains. An annual 1.7 per cent reduction in the prevalence of
under-nourishment in the past decade has hardly caused a dent in the absolute numbers of the
malnourished, which remains a major cause of concern (Mittal 2011).

This paper seeks to focus on the food security mechanisms initiated at the elementary level
for the benefit of primary school students, in cognizance with the fact that the South Asian
economies are home to a significantly large proportion of global child population.
Developing on the Mid-day Meal Scheme initiated by the Ministry of Human Resource
Development (Department of Education), Government of India under the National
Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education programme, the paper examines the
'food utilisation' aspect of food security which takes into account food preparation, storage
and utilisation, food safety, nutritional safety and dietary balance.

The paper shall follow an analytical approach drawing on published literature and data
relating to the central theme - nutritional security of primary school students through the lens
of the largest school-feeding programme in the world, the Mid-day Meal Scheme. The
objectives of the paper are :
 To examine the role of Midday Meal Scheme in alleviating classroom hunger and
accelerating the nutritional capabilities of primary school students.
 To identify the inherent weaknesses in the Midday Meal Scheme with respect to
targeting, safeguards, quality of meals and efficiency considerations and to suggest
remedies to improve the quality of the programme with special focus on inter-
regional trade and other policy options which link school-feeding programmes across
South Asia for mutual benefit.

Centred on a relevant hypothesis (H1) of "The Mid-day Meal scheme's effectiveness has been
below par in materialising nutritional security to primary school students", the paper aims to
evaluate the health outcomes of the scheme in terms of nutritional requirements
(recommended dietary allowances) and access to safe food. Based on the ground realities of
peaking procurement costs, inefficient distribution and off-take of foodgrains from the Food
Corporation of India for the Mid-day Meal scheme and poor infrastructural facilities which
compromise on the safety of noon-meals, the paper advocates strong inter-regional
cooperation including but not limited to the SAARC Food Reserves, trade liberalisation and

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disaster management (in war-stricken areas) to boost health outcomes of malnourished South
Asian children.

The paper is organised as follows : Section 1 comprises an introduction to the paper with the
background, objectives and hypotheses of the study. Section 2 presents an extensive literature
review of school-feeding programmes across the world with special emphasis on health
outcomes, educational attainment and reduction of gender gaps. Sections 3 and 4 outlines the
Mid-day Meal Scheme in India as an empirical case study with a clear understanding of its
achievements and challenges which hinder its progress. Section 5 places the Indian Mid-day
Meal Scheme in a South-Asian context with an aim to understand the parallels between
school feeding programmes sponsored by the World Food Programme in Bangladesh and Sri
Lanka and explores policy options for better regional outcomes. Section 6 presents the major
findings and policy recommendations of the paper and Section 7 concludes with a summary
of the major arguments of the paper .Section 8 references the major literature sources which
were of use to this study.

Background

The National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) was

launched as a centrally-sponsored scheme on 15th August 1995, in 2,408 blocks in the
country as a dry ration scheme with a view to increase enrolment, retention and attendance
and simultaneously improving the nutritional levels among primary school students. Under
this scheme, food grains at the rate of 3 kgs/month/student was provided to all the children of
Classes I-V in all government, local body and government-aided schools in all the States and
Union Territories subject to a minimum of 80% attendance of such children. Around 1997-
1998, NP-NSPE or the Mid-day Meal scheme was extended to all the blocks of the country.

The landmark judgment by the Hon. Supreme Court of India dated 28th November, 2001
mandated the provision of a cooked mid-day meal to every child in every Government and
Government-assisted primary schools with a minimum content of 300 calories and 8-12
grams of protein per day for a minimum of 200 days. The Government of India had the
responsibility of providing free supply of food grains at 100 grams per student per school day
and subsidised transportation cost of foodgrains upto a maximum of ₹ 50 per quintal. There
was no provision for cooking cost and many states including the likes of Karnataka, Tamil
Nadu, Gujarat etc provided for the same from their own budgets.

The following years showed significant improvements- inclusion of children studying in EGS
and AIE centres under the purview of the Mid-day Meal Scheme (2002), Central Assistance
for cooking cost at ₹ 1 per child per school day and increase in transport subsidy from ₹ 50 to
₹ 100 (special purpose states) and ₹ 75 for other states (2004), provision for Mid-day Meals
to children in drought-affected areas during summers, further revision of cooking cost to ₹
1.80 per child per school day and provision for Central assistance for construction of kitchen
and procurement of kitchen equipments (2006), extending the scheme to children of upper

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primary classes (Classes VI-VIII) with their nutritional norms fixed at 700 calories and 200
grams of protein (2007), revision of food norms for upper primary children by increasing the
quantity of pulses, vegetables and reducing the fat and oil content as well as an enhancement
of cooking and transportation cost (2009) and the like.

The functioning of the Mid-day Meals Scheme is governed by the MDM Guidelines which
are updated periodically and a comprehensive mechanism is initiated to monitor the service
delivery of the Mid-day Meal Scheme which involves a block-level, district-level, state-level
and National-level Steering-cum-Monitoring Committee along with grievance redressal
mechanisms and periodic returns submitted by the State and Union Territories to the
Department of School Education and Literacy, Government of India on coverage of children
and institutions, progress in utilization of central assistance, etc.

2. Literature Review

Policy initiatives in developing countries have long focused on improving the levels of
educational attainment and nutritional outcomes of its vulnerable population, specially
school-going children. Such policy interventions which promote catch-up growth could lead
to improvement in mental and physical well-being as well as a variety of other non-health
outcomes of these children (Behrman, 1996).

The existing literature on public transfers to children, school-feeding programmes

specifically, have focused on its impact on school participation, child health, educational
attainment and cognitive ability as well as reducing gender disparities among children.

School feeding programmes are likely to increase school enrolment and overall attendance of
primary school children. In a study conducted in Malawi by the World Food Programme
showed that a small, pilot, school feeding program over a three-month period led to a 5 %
increase in school enrolment rates and up to 36 % improvement in attendance (WFP 1996).
The Mexican PROGRESA programme which provides sizeable cash transfers to households
subject to their children attending school for a minimum of 85 % school days resulted in
substantial changes in middle school enrolments and calorie intakes (Schultz 2004).

Dreze and Kingdon (2000) observes that provision of mid-day meals increased enrolment of
girls but not of boys in primary schools. A school feeding program which involved provision
of fortified wheat biscuits to primary school children in chronically food insecure areas of
Bangladesh by the Government and WFP raised school enrolment by 14.2% (Ahmed, 2004).
Similarly, Afridi (2011) concludes that there is a large and significant increase in the
attendance level and rates of girls in lower grades and a positive, but insignificant impact on
first grade boys and no visible improvement in overall enrolment rates due to the provision of
cooked mid-day meals in the Chindwara district of Madhya Pradesh.

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School feeding programmes have been instrumental in improving nutritional intake of
children and its efficacy depends on its use as a supplement or substitute to household meals.
A study in Huaraz, Peru shows that for children who received breakfast at schools, dietary
intake of energy increased by 2 percent, protein by 28 percent, and iron by 4 percent
compared to the control group (Jacoby et al. 1996). Jacoby (2002), in one of the very few
studies which measured food intake from school feeding programmes as a supplement or
substitute to normal food intake at home, explores the existence of an “intra-household
flypaper effect” by which in-school intake of calories from the school-feeding snacks and
meals “stick” to the child.

Ahmed's (2004) path-breaking study of the impact of the School Feeding programme in
Bangladesh on child nutrition showed a 4.3 % increase from the average BMI of primary
school children in control area. Afridi (2010) finds that for as low a cost as 3 cents per child
per school day, the Mid-day Meal scheme reduced the daily protein deficiency of a primary
school student by 100%, the calorie deficiency by almost 30% and the daily iron deficiency
by nearly 10 and evidences for its substantial effect on reducing hunger at school and protein-
energy malnutrition at least in the short run.

However, Clay and Stokke (2000) consider food-based interventions to have little measurable
impact on nutritional status, morbidity or mortality levels except in crisis situations as poor
health status of children in developing countries owe their due share to poor and inadequate
access to safe drinking water, immunization, health facilities, etc. as well.

Early-childhood interventions have a significant effect on long-term educational attainment

and cognitive ability (Maluccio et al., 2007) as well. The findings of Simeon and Grantham-
McGregor (1989) indicate that targeting of school meals to undernourished children should
achieve greater impact in terms of improving children’s cognitive ability as nutritional status
which influence learning and educational attainment can be improved by school feeding
programmes.

Participation in School Feeding program in Bangladesh reportedly increased test scores by

15.7 percent points and interestingly, participating students do especially well in
mathematics—they score 28.5 percent higher in mathematics than do their counterpart
students in the control group (Ahmed, 2004) . However, the lack of scientific rigour in
measuring educational outcomes and the relatively low influence on experimental conditions
limit the evaluation of the Mid-day Meal Scheme participants on their cognitive abilities.

Dreze and Goyal (2003) argue that mid-day meals help to undermine caste prejudices, by
teaching children to sit together and share a common meal. They also foster gender equity,
by reducing the gender gap in school participation, providing an important source of female
and Dalit employment in rural areas, and liberating working women from the burden of
having to feed their children at home during the day (especially, noon-time).

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3. Achievements of the Mid-day Meal Scheme

The Mid-day Meal scheme shall be evaluated in terms of its achievements in alleviating
classroom hunger, micronutrient supplementation of the primary school children and the
intra-household flypaper effect which ensures that the nutritional benefits accruing to
students on account of the Mid-day Meal Scheme 'sticks' to the children and is not neutralised
by an intra-household reallocation of resources and the possible spill-over effects to younger
siblings on account of sharing of dry-rations which were made available to the households as
part of the initial Mid-day Meal Scheme.

Eliminating classroom hunger

Hunger reduces children's ability to concentrate and retain what they have learnt at school
and greater exposure to diseases are directly related to hunger. Many Indian school children
reach school on an empty stomach in the morning due to poor economic and social
backgrounds. In the absence of mid-day meal, children often find it hard to concentrate after
a few hours and leave school post-noon.

It was in this light that The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) filed a public interest
litigation by highlighting the paradox of widespread prevalence of chronic hunger and
malnutrition when there was an excess of food supplies in the godowns of the Food
Corporation of India which eventually stimulated the Hon. Supreme Court of India to
promulgate an order which directed all State Governments to provide cooked midday meals.

Nutritional support for school-going children has been highlighted by a series of similar
organisational campaigns within a rights framework. Afridi (2010) comments on the
substantial effect of the Mid-day Meal Scheme in reducing hunger at school and protein-
energy malnutrition of the participant school children. The contribution of mid-day meals to
food security and child nutrition is particularly crucial in tribal areas, where hunger is
endemic and hence parental appreciation of mid-day meals was highest among tribal
communities in the Centre for Equity Studies survey (Dreze and Goyal, 2003).

Nutritional supplementation

Dreze and Goyal (2003) views the Mid-day Meal Scheme as 'a nutritionist's dream' which
helps to increase their regular daily intake of calories and proteins as well as integration with
nutrient supplementation schemes which aim at improving intake of iron, iodine and other
micronutrients which are quintessential to swift and steady growth of children.

A combination of mass deworming with Vitamin A and iron supplementation can

significantly increase children's nutrition for as little as ₹15 per child per year
(Gopaldas,2003) and the Mid-day Meal Scheme provides an excellent platform for

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integration with complementary inputs like these owing to its extensive coverage and social
intervention. Recognising the synergy between health and nutrition, school health
programmes - deworming, nutrient supplementation, etc. should be integrated with the Mid-
day Meal Scheme in more states, following Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu
etc. to boost service delivery.

Intra-household Flypaper Effect

Becker's (1974) standard unitary model of household behaviour based on altruism suggests
that public transfers to an individual member are equivalent to an increase in total household
resources as long as household is the final decision making unit. This would result in
relatively small gains to the intended recipients on account of intra-household reallocation of
resources in response to a given welfare scheme.

On the contrary, Jacoby's (2002) evaluation of the food intake from school feeding
programmes in the Philippines explores the notion of an 'intra-household flypaper effect' i.e
the degree to which a public transfer sticks to the targeted participant, here primary school
children. Similar to Jacoby's findings, Afridi (2010) identifies the school-going child as the
final recipient who has very little bargaining power in the household yet enjoys share of
nutrient transfers in the range of 49% to 100%, indicating that a substantial proportion of the
transfers benefit the child and there is very little household reallocation of resources.

This can be further explained using 'labeling effect' proposed by Kooreman (2000) which
explains that in-kind targeted transfers towards children alter intra-household distribution of
utility in favour of children compared to non-targeted members. In case of the Mid-day Meal
scheme, it has changed parental preferences by making them aware of the nutritional
deficiencies of their children and the quantity of the mid-day meal is too-small for the
average family to consider re-allocation of resources and the costs of redistribution outweigh
the benefits accruing to the other family members from such redistribution. Thus, on-site sc
hool-feeding programmes like the Mid-day Meal Scheme have been instrumental in ensuring
the food intake by children 'stick' to themselves and is a supplement to household food intake
rather than as a substitute, which occurs rarely in credit-constrained poor families.

Spill-over effects

Spill-over benefits accrued to non-targeted members of a family on when dry rations at the
rate of 3 kgs per child/month were distributed in the early years of the Mid-day Meal
Scheme. This was well above 1.67 kgs per child/month provided to the targeted child only
under the cooked meals scheme and provided additional incentives to poor parents to enrol
students in a Government primary school to receive the benefits on a regular basis. Providing
nutrition bars and/or fortified biscuits in addition to regular mid-day meals would usher in
spill-over effects similar to those observed in younger siblings of SF participants in
Bangladesh(Ahmed.2004).

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4. Challenges and Concerns regarding the Mid-day Meal Scheme

An evaluation of the ambitious Mid-day Meal Scheme of the Government of India requires a
detailed analysis of the ground realities and the various loopholes to be plugged if nutritious
food, and not just something which has been cooked, is to reach the plate of poor primary
students. The main concerns regarding the Mid-day Meal Scheme can be highlighted as :

The Bihar Tragedy

On 16 July 2013, 23 primary school children in the Gandamal school (Saran district,Bihar)
died after consuming an adulterated mid-day meal served at the school premises. Lack of
proper storage facility for the food supplies required for the preparation of Mid-day Meals,
poor implementation by the school authorities, negligence of private sector and NGO units in
preparation of mid-day meals and substandard nutritive quality of the cooked mid-day meal
have been major issues raised after the tragedy (Khera 2013)

Bihar was one of the last states to comply with the Supreme Court's 2001 directive to provide
for cooked mid-day meals and had inadequate kitchen sheds, cooks/helpers, hand-pumps and
other quality safeguards, compromising severely on the nutritional safety of the midday meal.
The dietary balance was also poorly maintained in many schools across the country even in
Delhi where samples regularly failed quality tests and laggard states like Bihar have often
failed to ensure that the due share of recommended dietary allowances (RDA) for primary
school children are met by the Mid-day Meal Scheme. In a similar fashion, The Planning
Commission's Performance Evaluation of Cooked Mid-day Meal (2011) observes that 72 %
of the beneficiaries in a sample school in Bihar deem the quality of the mid-day meal as 'poor'

Mid-day Meal as a Credence Good

Food-products/ mid-day meals are also classified as credence goods, where quality of food in
terms of nutrition and safety is not known to consumers and often to producers, even long
after the consumption of the product. Thus, in the presence of imperfect and asymmetric
information, market institutions are likely to not deliver efficient outcomes in the case of
credence goods such as mid-day meal (Deodhar et. al, 2010).

Thus, nutritional deficiencies in mid day meal and carcinogenic effects of mild
contaminations or adulteration of food grains and/or cooking oil would show up in the young
population with a lag of at least a few years. Hence, the poor implementation of the Mid-day
Meal Scheme in the so-called BIMARU states with poor emphasis on quality and safety
standards run the risk of stunted, underweight and wasted children as against its primary aim
of improving their nutritional levels. Potential hazards may arise as a result of furtive
replacement of high-quality foodgrains by the FCI with low-quality or adulterated foodgrains
by.unscrupulous.intermediaries.

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Inefficient utilisation and poor infrastructure

The Annual Statement of allocation and offtake of foodgrains under the Mid-day Meal
scheme throws light on consistent underutilisation of foodgrains with almost 4-5 lakh tonnes
of rice and wheat being wasted every year (Refer Table 2). This results in excess buffer stock
of foodgrains at the Food Corporation of India godowns where they are contaminated and
eventually wasted, resulting in invaluable losses. The delay in cash payments of foodgrains
from the Food Corporation of India to the respective schools are often a case of dispute
between the school authorities and FCI agents.

Dreze and Goyal (2003) comments that Mid-day meals are loosely supervised and formal
monitoring arrangements are sparse. While official guidelines call for different committees
and officers to monitor the scheme periodically, checks are sporadic. This is in addition to the
existence of poor drinking water facilities, lack of proper storage facilities and delays in the
payment of cooks/helpers, inadequate availability of fuelwood and lunch plates.

Also a cause of concern is the purchase of vegetables, cooking oil and other inputs by the
school authorities. Lack of quality safeguards and tardy response to the 'Right to Food'
concept has resulted in a meager allocation of funds per child and a correspondingly low
quality of food inputs. Presence of toxins and hazardous chemicals like uric acid were
observed in various samples of Mid-day Meals prepared in a sample school in Ahmedabad
(Deodhar et al. 2010).

Although the prospect of fortified wheat biscuits sound promising as a supplement to the
Mid-day Meal Scheme, private entities have begun to prey on the MDM "market" (Khera
2013) wherein a Biscuit Manufacturers Association wrote to MPs trashing the Mid-day Meal
Scheme and urging it to be replaced with fortified biscuits in an attempt to boost their gains.

Corrupt private sector practices may also take the form of centralised kitchens for Mid-day
Meals for a large number of schools being contracted by a lone private entity, leading to
monopoly and corrupt practices. Khera (2013) points out such dangers of invasion of private
interests into school-feeding programmes and in the wake of such incidents, the recent MDM
guidelines cautions schools against granting contracts to NGOs and other private entities.

Thus, Mid-day Meals have a long way to go about ensuring nutritional security of
primary school students in India and its effectiveness have been below-par. The Planning
Commission's Performance Evaluation of Cooked Mid-day Meal Scheme (2010) evidences to
this fact with leakage of foodgrains from the FCI to the school, lack of storage facilities and
availability of plates/tumblers in almost all sample states, lack of nutritive and varied Mid-
day Meal menu, the absence of regular meetings of the Steering-cum-Monitoring Committees
and wastage of precious teaching time due to MDM responsibilities being its main
arguments.

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5. The Mid-day Meal Scheme in a South-Asian Perspective

The Government of India's Mid-day Meal Scheme is the largest school-feeding programme in
the world with about 10.45 crore children enrolled in 11.58 lakh schools under its purview
(2013-'14). The Mid-day Meal scheme finds South Asian parallels in the Sri Lankan school
Mid-day meal programme which covers over 5 lakh children in 6440 and the school feeding
programmes in chronic food-insecure areas of Bangladesh (Ahmed 2004) by the Government
of Bangladesh in partnership with the World Food Programme which provides a mid-
morning snack of 8 fortified wheat biscuits to all children in intervention schools as well as
Sri Lanka by the World Food Programme which provides food assistance to 1,60,000 primary
and secondary school students of 958 schools in the war-stricken Northern Province.

Benefitting a huge target population of primary school children, these Mid-day Meal schemes
require huge food reserves including grains, vegetables, cooking oil, etc. This paper aims to
fill the research gap by suggesting a SAARC Food Reserve, trade liberalisation and porous
trade boundaries to meet the growing demand for food to meet the needs of school-going
children, taking into account mutual trade complementarities and reduction in negative lists.

The SAARC Food Bank has been ratified by all South Asian countries except Afghanistan
and in this regard, India and Pakistan being major exporters of agricultural goods in the
region can play a leading role in ensuring food security by contributing their surplus food to
the Food Bank in South Asia (Mittal, 2011). Considering India's large size and operational
feasibility, India's share of 3,06,400 million tonnes of foodgrains have been placed at
strategic locations across FCI godowns to facilitate quick movement across borders and
operationalization of these reserves have been thought of post the conclusion of the 7th
SAARC Food Bank Board Meeting.

A series of trade liberalisation measures initiated by the South Asian Economies post the
Uruguay Round of WTO negotiations have considerably increased their impact on food
imports to meet domestic demand. Harnessing the comparative advantage of each nation,
South Asian economies shall engage in active intra-regional trade to stabilise food prices,
increase food production and stimulate food exports for mutual benefit (Chand 2007). Self-
sufficiency in staple foods is quintessential to food security and there is a need to balance
food self-sufficiency and trade, considering the diverging crop production across countries.

The development of a harmonized network for safe movement of agriculture commodities,

bio-research management, research on new crop techniques to boost productivity and
reduction of tariffs as well as enhanced cooperation on climate change mitigation can prove
very useful to the SAARC region in boosting agricultural productivity and nutritional
security. Signing of SAFTA and tariff adjustments have ushered in a new wave of cross-
border cooperation but mutual cooperation should go beyond BIMSTEC, Trade and Transit
Treaty, etc. to create institutional linkages and encouragement of private investment which
will redefine technological practices and productivity as well as harmonise quality standards.

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6. The Way Ahead

Dreze and Goyal (2003) argue that "with adequate resources and quality safeguards, mid-day
meals can play a major role in improving school attendance, eliminating classroom hunger
and fostering social equity." A few policy recommendations in the form of remedial measures
to enhance the efficiency of the Mid-day Meal Scheme in improving nutritional levels may be
summarised below :

a) Financial allocations for the Mid-day Meal Schemes need to be increased to help
them achieve the full potential. Shoe string programmes like those in Rajasthan and
Chattisgarh lose out on the vital opportunity of improving nutritional security at a very low
cost due to misappropriation of finances, errors in estimation of beneficiaries etc.

b) A complete overhaul of Mid-day infrastructure is necessary to improve public confidence

in the same as well as to ensure access to safe and nutritious food to primary school children.
Construction of kitchen sheds, appointment of cooks and/or helpers, provision for drinking
water facilities etc need to be done on a swift basis to ensure good hygiene.

c) Varied and more nutritious lunch menu (fruits, milk, eggs, nutrition bars, etc.) needs to be
introduced across all states and the MDM Guidelines with recipes prepared by the chefs of
Hotel Oberoi, New Delhi are a welcome step in this regard. This would improve the
participation of targeted recipients and ensure that the meal equivalent of recommended
dietary allowances is provided with enough calorific value. There is also an increased need to
integrate health intervention programmes in schools such as deworming, Vitamin A, iron and
iodine supplementation to boost health outcomes.

d) The encouraging findings with regard to intra-household flypaper effect offer promising
opportunities to scale up the programme to benefit primary school students at the maximum.
However, care must be exercised while targeting the intended participants and MDM may be
scaled up in areas where malnourishment is a critical issue and has great unexplored potential
as identified by Vulnerability Analysis.

e) Private sector participation may be encouraged in service delivery with regard to the Mid-
day Meal Scheme only with great caution to eliminate vested interests playing against
the interests of the main stakeholders-children. They may be subject to close monitoring by
the Steering-cum-Monitoring Committee at various levels and encouraged to comply with
food quality management protocols and MDM guidelines.

f) The Monitoring and Evaluation mechanisms need to be strengthened with mandatory

tasting of cooked meals, regular lab testing of samples and regular meetings so as to ensure
quality standards of the cooked mid-day meals. Regular monitoring of the offtake and
utlisation of foodgrains from FCI, cash payments for the same and purchase of other inputs
are.essential.

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g) Policy options such as interregional trade and research in productivity-enhancement
techniques, emergency food reserves and improved regional cooperation via BIMSTEC,
SAFTA, etc may be considered as an alternative to procurement of food grains for MDM in
emergencies and otherwise as well as an export idea for surplus foodgrains allocated to
MDM. Better understanding of fair practices and efficient delivery systems can help in
improving the profile of school-feeding programmes in South Asia with a combined effort to
rehabilitate children in war-stricken areas with the World Food Programme.

7. Conclusion

The Mid-day Meal Scheme, a flagship programme of the Government of India aimed at
improving educational attainment and alleviating classroom hunger among primary school
students enrolled in Government, local body or Government-aided schools. Its role in
materialising the 'Right to Food' has been significant owing to its ability to diminish
classroom hunger, reduce gender disparities and improve educational attainment. The
existence of an 'intra-household flypaper effect' ensured benefits accruing to proper targeting
but major revamps are necessary to realise its full potential.

Following the Bihar Tragedy and its nature of Mid-day meals as a credence good, this study
proposed quality infrastructure, varied school menu and efficient monitoring of cash
payments, foodgrain offtake, utilisation etc. by the Steering committees to maximise the
nutritional benefit to students. Realising the potential of Mid-day Meal Schemes in mitigating
malnutrition across South Asia, this paper also analysed the MDM scheme in a South Asian
perspective and recommends strong interregional trade and cooperation including the SAARC
Food Bank to ensure food and nutritional security along with self-sufficiency in staple foods.

The present study was limited by the lack of accurate data on the Mid-day Meal scheme's
nutritional benefits and hopes that new research shall validate the above findings. However,
universalisation of primary education and combating malnutrition continue to be the two
daunting challenges before South Asian economies and this paper unanimously concludes
that there is an urgent need to improve nutritional security of primary school children and a
successful revamp of the Mid-day Meal Scheme is the panacea to meeting the above
Millennium.Development.Goals.

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8. References

Afridi, F., 2010. Child welfare programs and child nutrition: Evidence from a mandated
school meal program in India. Journal of development Economics, 92(2), pp.152-165.

Afridi, F., 2011. The impact of school meals on school participation: evidence from rural
India. Journal of Development Studies, 47(11), pp.1636-1656.

Ahmed, A.U., 2004. Impact of feeding children in school: Evidence from

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Websites

http://www.mdm.nic.in/guideline.html

http://www.dfpd.nic.in/saarc-food-bank.html

http://www.dfpd.nic.in/basic-plan-overview.html

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Appendix

Table 1 : Latest Food Norms and cooking cost under the Mid-day Meal Scheme

Food norm with effect from 1-12-2009

Quantity per day/child

S. No. Items
Primary Upper Primary
1 Foodgrains 100 gms 150 gms
2 Pulses 20 gms 30 gms
3 Vegetables (leafy also) 50 gms 75 gms
4 Oil & fat 5 gms 7.5 gms
5 Salt & condiments As per need As per need

Revised Cooking cost per child per school day w.e.f. 1.07.2016 (view order dt.01-07-16)
Central-State Sharing
Non-NER States NER-States (90:10)
Stage Total Cost & 3 Himalayan All UTs
(60:40) States (100%)
Central State Central State
Primary Rs.4.13 Rs.2.48 Rs.1.65 Rs.3.72 Rs.0.41 Rs.4.13
Upper Primary Rs. 6.18 Rs. 3.71 Rs. 2.47 Rs. 5.56 Rs. 0.62 Rs. 6.18

Source : MDM Guidelines

Table 2 : Statement showing Annual allocation/ offtake of food grains (in lakh tons)
under the MDM scheme during the last seven years is as under :

Allocation Offtake

Year Rice Wheat Total Rice Wheat Total

2008-09 21.48 4.78 26.26 15.82 4.37 20.19

2009-10 22.85 4.90 27.75 18.54 4.46 23.00

2010-11 24.55 5.33 29.88 19.29 4.81 24.10

2011-12 22.29 4.84 27.13 19.17 4.49 23.66

2012-13 23.83 4.67 28.50 20.74 4.23 24.97

2013-14 22.79 4.67 27.46 19.86 3.91 23.77

2014-15* 23.42 4.20 27.62 20.07 3.63 23.70

Available at : http://dfpd.nic.in/writereaddata/images/pdf/welfare/scheme-alloacation.pdf

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