Mid-Day Meal, MDM
Basic Information
Country
Geographic area
Institutions and agencies involved
Population group
Children
Programme Details
Programme objectives
The objectives of the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) programme is to enhance school enrolment and attendance, and simultaneously improve nutritional levels among children. It also provides food support often to targeted regions affected by natural disasters.
Programme components
India’s Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme implements a shock-sensitive measure by providing meals also during school holidays for drought-affected areas in addition to the regular meals (GoI n.d.). The programme also engages so called ‘cook-cum-helpers’, of which the majority are women. The programme guidelines explicitly encourage the engagement of women and minorities. However, precarious wages and discrimination against Dalit cooks have been reported
India’s MDM also presents a somewhat different take on priority targeting. While it does not favour children with a specific background when determining eligibility, it does provide more generous benefits to those living in drought-affected areas. Hence, it gives preferential treatment to children living in disaster-prone regions.
Previous programme name (if any)
National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE)
Conditionalities (if any)
Children need to attend classes to receive the benefit, since meals are distributed in schools
Coverage
Programme expenditure
2017-18 Budget estimate of INR10,000 crore (1 crore = 10 million)
2017-18 Expenditure of INR9,092 core
2018-19 Budget estimate of INR 10,500 crore
2018-19 Budget revised estimate of 9,949 crore
2019-2020 Budget estimate of INR 11,000 crore
Targeting and eligiblity
Targeting methods
Categorical Targeting
Geographical Targeting
Targeted areas
An interesting case of India's Mid-Day Meal (MDM) is the use of geographical targeting is India’s MDM, which provides more generous benefits in disaster-prone regions. Whereas the school feeding component only covers children during the school year in most regions, the programme distributes food even during the holidays in drought-affected areas.
Target groups
Primary-school children. India's Mid-Day Meal (MDM) programme is also a good example that targets the individual, since each beneficiary student has to actually attend school to receive meals, and each student is considered an independent unit covered by the programme.
Eligibility criteria
Children must be enrolled in public schools (government, government-aided, local body, EGS and AIE Centres, Madrasas and Maqtabs supported under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and NCLP Schools run by the Ministry of Labour), studying in primary or upper primary classes
Coverage and other information
Amount of benefits
Students receive a meal containing 100 grams of foodgrains, 20 grams of dal, 50 grams of vegetables, and 5 grams of oil and fat (450 calories in total) at the primary stage and 150 grams of foodgrains, 30 grams of dal, 75 of vegetables, and 7.5 grams of oil and fat (700 calories in total) at the upper primary stage per school day (314 days)
Payment/delivery frequency
Every work/ school -day and during summer vacations for drought-affected areas
Benefit delivery mechanism
Benefit recipients
Children/students
Minimum and maximum duration of benefits (if any)
Benefits last until children reach upper primary education. Meals are distributed throughout the school working year (314 days) and during summer vacations for drought-affected areas
Monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and frequency
The programme is monitored by all levels of government, following the procedure established in the programme guidelines. Local communities are also encouraged to be involved in the process. Moreover, monitoring institutes, which are also in charge of verifying the progress and quality of the programme at the district level, covering 5 per cent of the total number of MDM-participating schools over within a period of two years, submit half-yearly reports. Monthly and quarterly progress reports produced by states are also part of the monitoring and evaluation efforts
MIS
There is a MIS that covers 98% of all schools who benefit from the mid day meal in the FY 2016-17. The system is mostly integrated with internet, but schools that lack connectivity can feed their information offline so that the info is integrated to the online system from time to time. Over 90% of school display a good complieance, feeding data monthly as the programme guidelines demands.
