Lok Sabha Question No. 1178 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2025-12-08
Subject: Quality of Mid-Day Meal
Ministry: EDUCATION
Asked by: Dr. K Sudhakar

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL EDUCATION AND LITERACY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-1178

ANSWERED ON- 08/12/2025

## Quality of Mid-Day Meal

## 1178. Dr. K Sudhakar:

Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state:

(a)  whether any steps have been taken by the Government to ensure periodic inspection to ensure the quality of the Mid-Day Meal programme in the country, if so, the details thereof;

(b) the details of steps taken by the Government to ensure that funds granted for the Mid-Day Meal programme are properly utilised by schools; and

(c)  total  number  of  reported  cases  of  faults  and  food  poisoning  in  the  Mid-Day  Meal programme in the State of Karnataka during the last two years?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

## (SHRI JAYANT CHAUDHARY)

(a) to (c): Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) Scheme is one of the foremost rights based Centrally Sponsored Scheme implemented in partnership with the States and Union Territories (UTs) for providing one hot cooked and nutritious meal to all children studying  in  Bal  Vatika  (just  before  class-I)  and  classes  I  to  VIII  of  Government  and Government-aided schools.  The Scheme covers about 11 crore children in more than 10.35 lakh schools in all the States/ UTs. The overall responsibility for providing hot cooked and nutritious meal to the eligible children lies with the State Governments and Union Territory Administrations. For FY 2025-26, budget allocation for the PM Poshan Scheme is Rs. 12,500 crore by Government of India and the State/ UT share as per the sharing pattern is around Rs. 8,500 crore including additional funds for Honorarium to Cook-cum-Helpers and Supplementary Nutrition items. The foodgrain allocation by Government of India is 24.15 lakh MTs which costs around Rs. 9000 crore. Thus overall allocation for the PM Poshan Scheme for FY 2025-26 is more than Rs. 30,000 crore including more than Rs. 21,500 crore made by Government of India.

The Government of India has issued detailed guidelines to improve the implementation of  the  scheme  to  all  the  States/UTs.  These  guidelines  are  available  on  official  website https://pmposhan.education.gov.in.  These  guidelines,  inter-alia,  provides  for  instructions  to schools to procure Agmark quality and branded items for preparation of meals, training to Cook-cum-Helpers, tasting of meals by members of School Management Committee (SMC) including at least one teacher before serving the hot meal to children. Further, it provides for testing of food samples by Government Food Research Laboratory or any laboratory accredited or recognized by law to ensure that the meals meet nutritional standards and quality. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) is given responsibility for making available food grains of best available  quality,  meeting  the  parameters  of  Fair  Average  Quality  (FAQ).  Under  the  PM POSHAN  Scheme, inspection by State officials is mandatory to ensure effective implementation, quality, and hygiene. States and UTs have established specific monitoring mechanisms.

Public  Financial  Management  System  (PFMS)  system  has  been  introduced  by  the Government under which State Government opened State Nodal Agency (SNA) accounts. The funds  released  by  Central  Government  are  transferred  to  SNA  account  which  ensures comprehensive monitoring and efficient usage. In the beginning of the financial year the 1 st instalment of the Central share is released not more than 25% of the amount earmarked for State for the financial year. Further 2 nd , 3 rd and 4 th instalments of Central Share are released after expenditure of 75% of the total available funds in the SNA account and compliance of the conditions of previous sanction.

As per  the  extant  guidelines  of  the  PM  Poshan  Scheme  States/UTs  are  required  to conduct Social Audit in all districts in at least 20 schools or 2% of the schools, whichever is higher for each district. The responsibility for taking action and ensuring compliance on the Social Audit findings rests with the State/ UTs. States/ UTs have conducted social audits in 32,664 schools across the country. Further, the States/ UTs through their designated officials have conducted inspections in 9.78 lakh schools in the year 2024-25 and 8.21 lakh schools in the year 2025-26 (upto October). The State/ UTs have conducted 25,389 testing of meals in the year  2024-25  and  21,074  in  the  year  2025-26  (upto  October)  in  accredited  labs  across  the country.

The scheme also provides elaborate monitoring mechanism i.e. Empowered Committee under the Chairpersonship of Hon'ble Union Education Minister, Programme Approval Board (PAB)  under  the  Chairpersonship  of  Secretary  (DoSE&L),  State  Steering-cum-Monitoring Committee  under  the  Chairpersonship  of  Chief  Secretary,  District  level  Steering-cumMonitoring  Committee  under  the  Chairpersonship  of  District  Collector.  The  PM  Poshan Guidelines  provides  a  District  Level  Committee  under  the  Chairmanship  of  Senior  Most Member of Parliament (MP) of the district to monitor the scheme on quarterly basis.

During the last 2 years no cases of faults and food poisoning have been reported under the  PM  POSHAN  Scheme  (previously  known  as  Mid-Day  Meal  Scheme)  in  the  State  of Karnataka.

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