7 states and UTs push to add breakfast to school meals, Centre still weighing costs

Providing breakfast under PM-POSHAN is a recommendation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which the Centre is yet to implement.

In addition to the seven States/UTs that have asked for the breakfast to be included, 11 States/UTs have asked for the scheme to be extended to students up till class 12. This includes Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Goa, and Meghalaya.

The Education Ministry wrote to the States and Union Territories in September calling for their suggestions before a proposal is prepared to extend the scheme that was approved for implementation for the 15th Finance Commission cycle that ends with the 2025-26 year.

It was in response to the call for suggestions that the seven States and UTs have asked for the provision of breakfast under the scheme, which currently covers only midday meals.

The NEP states that “research shows that the morning hours after a nutritious breakfast can be particularly productive for the study of cognitively more demanding subjects and hence these hours may be leveraged by providing a simple but energising breakfast in addition to midday meals.”

When the Education Ministry proposed a provision of breakfast under the scheme in 2021-22, the Ministry of Finance turned it down.

An August 2021 report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on education, women, children, youth and sports, noted that a proposal was taken up with the Ministry of Finance at the Expenditure Finance Committee stage, for inclusion of breakfast, but the Ministry of Finance “has not agreed to the proposal”. “The matter will now be submitted to Cabinet for continuation of MDM (midday meal) scheme upto 2025-26 accordingly,” it added.

Officials in the Education Ministry said that a call is yet to be taken on whether a proposal for breakfast is likely to be made this time. They pointed to the need for a consensus within the government to add breakfast to the midday meal scheme in line with the NEP. The estimated additional cost could go up to around Rs. 6000 crore.

In response to queries on whether the Ministry is considering the proposal to include breakfast under PM-POSHAN, and what the status of implementation of the NEP recommendation is, the Ministry said “it is under process.”

Under the PM-POSHAN scheme, a cooked midday meal is provided to students in government and government-aided schools from pre-primary to class 8. The Centre provides foodgrains, shares the material cost with the States (and the UTs of Delhi and Puducherry, which have legislatures) in a 60:40 ratio; for the States in the northeastern and Himalayan region, the ratio is 90:10.

Tamil Nadu was the first State to have started providing breakfast to students in primary classes in government schools in 2022. Since then, the State has expanded the scheme to include government-aided primary schools. The then BRS government in Telangana launched a similar breakfast scheme for classes 1 to 10 in 2023, before the State went to polls. The Congress government in the State announced last month that it will introduce breakfast from the next academic session onwards. In December last year, Gujarat launched a morning meal programme for students in government primary schools. These States fund the breakfast scheme out of their own pockets.

The Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission evaluated the impact of the breakfast scheme and in a 2024 report pointed to improved engagement in class, increased willingness to go to school, a reduction in absenteeism and latecomers, and improved nutrition.

States provide supplementary nutrition items like eggs or fruits with their own funds. States that have extended the midday meal scheme to classes 9 and 10 – like Telangana – have also covered those costs with State resources.