Should midday meals be cooked in schools or centralised kitchens? Telangana revives the debate

In late July, Telangana’s chief minister, Revanth Reddy, announced that the state government was partnering with the Hare Rama Hare Krishna Foundation to supply midday meals to schools in his constituency of Kodangal, in Vikarabad district.

On August 2, around 50 activists wrote a letter to Reddy, objecting to this move. They said that they were “deeply concerned with attempts at moving towards a centralised kitchen model in partnership with private and religious organisations, rather than strengthening the current system of local communities and women cooking in schools, in a decentralised manner”.

Telangana is not the only state in which this question has been in the news. Also this year, the one-man Justice K Chandru committee recommended in a report submitted to the Tamil Nadu government that it establish centralised kitchens in every block, where meals would be prepared for school children. On August 21, a group of activists wrote to the Tamil Nadu chief minister, MK Stalin, urging him not to implement this recommendation.

Casteism, and the question of hygiene

Some states, such as Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, have used centralised kitchens for midday meals since the 2000s. Others, such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Jharkhand, have more recently started to rely on them, signing agreements with NGOs and private organisations who establish centralised kitchens, from where they transport the food to schools.

Among the main claims that NGOs and their supporters put forth in defence of centralised kitchens is that food prepared in them is more hygienic.

Activists argue that the idea that kitchens in schools are less hygienic is steeped in casteism. Dr Sylvia Karpagam noted that cooks in schools were often from marginalised communities, such as Scheduled Castes, and that declaring school kitchens unclean “sends the message that cooks, especially Dalit cooks, are dirty and unhygienic, which is nothing more than casteism”. She added that the staff of any kitchens, whether centralised or localised, would need training to maintain hygiene.

“They often boast that the food is ‘untouched’ by hand,” said Veena Shatrugna, former deputy director of the National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad. “But people use their hands to cook food. In fact, mothers cook with their hands and taste the food before they give it to their children.”

Though activists argue that these claims were founded in casteism, the Justice Chandru committee held that centralised kitchens could actually help tackle casteism that Dalit cooks face in schools, from families who disapprove of their children eating food prepared by them. In their letter to the Tamil Nadu chief minister, however, activists stated, “Responding to this problem by centralising kitchens would do more harm than good. For one thing, it would amount to caving in. Experience shows that a much better approach is to insist on the right of Dalit women to cook midday meals.”

Activists also cautioned against the loss of jobs that would result from centralising kitchens. The Chandru committee report stated that in Tamil Nadu, a centralised system would employ 10,000 women, whereas the current system employs 1.25 lakh women. It suggested that the more than one lakh women who would be left out under a centralised kitchen system could be employed in other government sectors. But the activists noted in their letter that “this is much easier said than done”.

Poor quality of food

Centralised kitchens often do not provide children with the quality of food that they deserve, activists argued. Karpagam noted that when food is cooked in a centralised kitchen, it is typically prepared early in the morning and packed as early as 4 am. “By lunchtime in schools, the food starts to smell strange and becomes inedible,” she said.

In 2019, a team of activists from different organisations in Karnataka produced a fact-finding report on the midday meal scheme, which looked at 31 schools across five districts. The team found high levels of food wastage at government schools because children did not like the taste of the food. It observed that “The consumption of food was higher in schools where the food was being cooked at the school premises and served hot and fresh to the students.” For instance, in one school that was provided food by Akshaya Patra, half the rice supplied by the organisation was left uneaten.

Scroll emailed queries to Akshaya Patra about these findings and other criticisms of the organisation. This story will be updated if it responds.

This was despite the fact that the organisation was using the same rice that many other school kitchens were using. However, “the Akshaya Patra rice when cooked becomes lumpy and dry and can be consumed only in limited quantity”, the report stated.

Delays are also a problem when food is transported from central kitchens. “The food is also often not delivered on time,” said Shantha Sinha, the former chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. “Young children deserve fresh food.”

In many cases, the reliance on centralised kitchens is particularly unnecessary given that schools have the necessary space to cook their own food. “Even in Bengaluru, many schools where [the midday meals system] has been centralized, there is more than enough space for local cooking and thus school-based kitchens are feasible,” the fact-finding report stated. Karpagam explained that in many instances, school administrations have attempted to reject arrangements with central kitchens, “but still somehow, they are given contracts” and schools are forced to rely on them.

Money spent on central kitchens is often wasteful. The letter to the Tamil Nadu chief minister noted, “Centralised kitchens require additional expenditure on storage, transport and sometimes (during hot months) even refrigeration. In the absence of adequate arrangements, there is a danger of food getƫing spoilt en route to the schools.” Further, it said, “On-site cooking in schools promotes accountability because meals are cooked in front of students, teachers and even some parents. When food is cooked at centralised kitchens, there tends to be little public scrutiny.”

Rama Melkote, the former state advisor to the National Food Security Commission, in unbifurcated Andhra Pradesh, argued that organisations that run centralised kitchens don’t care about making food to children’s liking because their general attitude is that “these children can and should eat what they are given because at least they are not starving”. But she said, “When the government is collecting taxes, they should ensure that students are provided with food that they like. Not force them to eat things they don’t like.”

A major benefit of having decentralised kitchens is that students can give feedback to the cooks about the food. “Students can let the cooks know what they liked or didn’t like so the cooks can make adjustments,” Shantha Sinha said. “But when it comes to centralised kitchens, students and parents cannot complain anywhere. These centralised kitchens are invisible to them.”

Karpagam noted that having localised kitchens also allows for bonds to form between staff and students. “We have seen children enjoy school-based kitchens, they call the cooks ajji, or aunty, the cooks look out for kids who don’t eat well,” she said. “While this may not be universal, it encourages relationships which sanitised spaces like Akshaya Patra dismantle completely.”

Poor nutrition

Activists worry that centralised kitchens do not provide government school students, many of whom are from Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim and Other Backward Class backgrounds, with the nutrition that they are entitled to. “The whole point of the midday meal is to give children a balanced meal,” said Melkote.

The National Food Security Act, 2013, mandates that midday meals for students studying between classes one and five contain 450 calories, and meals for those between classes six and ten contain 700 calories. That includes between 12 and 20 grams of protein, depending on the child’s age.

“The right to nutritious food to be ensured by the state is an integral part of the National Food Security Act, 2013,” said Meera Sanghamitra, a national convenor of the National Alliance of People’s Movements. She added that the Supreme Court had recognised “the right to food as a part of the fundamental right to life under Article 21 of the constitution”.

Among the biggest problems, activists say, is that some organisations who run central kitchens only cook food that is in line with their beliefs on caste and religion, which compromises the nutritional value of meals.

For instance, Akshaya Patra, which provides meals in several states, only supplies vegetarian food to schools. In Karnataka, it has maintained this stance despite a state government order making it mandatory for schools to provide eggs to students six days a week. The organisation has stated that supplying eggs would violate its religious principles, and also claims that it lacks the equipment needed to boil them.

Other religious organisations also take similar positions. The recent letter to the Telangana chief minister noted, “Private entities and NGOs, particularly religious organisations such as Hare Rama-Hare Krishna Foundation often have their own agenda and opinions on food, that are forced upon local communities.”

Sanghamitra argued that “By handing over the responsibility to NGOs and other organisations, the government is shirking off its responsibilities. They owe it to the children to provide them nutritious food and they must undertake that task.”

Karpagam noted that there was sufficient research “to prove that animal products are good for health, especially when children are suffering from malnutrition, anemia or multiple deficiencies. At least four out of the six nutrition groups must be provided to the children”. Many NGOs that supply food to schools “want to increase intake of foods like millets, but that is not sufficient nutrition”, she said.

In response to Akshaya Patra’s intransigence, the Karnataka government decided to engage external agencies to separately boil and provide eggs to the children. “That only increases costs,” Karpagam said.

In fact, Akshaya Patra adheres not just to a vegetarian diet but a sattvic one, in which onion and garlic are also excluded. This is despite the fact that “all the children we spoke to said they had no problems with these ingredients, and many said they would like the food more if onion and garlic are added”, the fact-finding report stated.

“These organisations have their own religious agenda and how they look at food, their notions of what is pure, what isn’t, what is sattvic and isn’t,” said Sanghamitra. “This is not based on scientific assessment of the nutritional value nor is it sensitive to the specificities of the social locations and upbringing of the children.”

The imposition of religious ideologies onto schools can leave children questioning their own food habits. “Children are being told that their food habits are wrong, that they should adopt the sattvic diet,” Karpagam said. “They are going back to their homes and asking their mothers why they eat meat or onion or garlic.”

Need for funding

NGOs often claim that using centralised kitchens can help reduce the burden on teachers, who are sometimes forced to cook because of a shortage of personnel. “But what we should be focusing on is to ensure the schools get their funds so they are able to provide for the children,” Karpagam said. “Instead of handing the responsibility over to these caste-based organisations.”

“If the government makes payments for the cooks, helpers and ration on time, decentralised kitchens can function smoothly,” said Sanghamitra.

In fact, Karpagam pointed out that often cooks who are employed from the community don’t get paid for several months and yet continue their work. “The women find great pleasure in watching children eat their food,” she said. “Often, when the funds don’t come in, the cooks and teachers pay for the rations from their own pockets.”

In contrast to schools, which struggle for funds, organisations like Akshaya Patra solicit donations from the public even while they receive government funds. “They get funds from the government for the food programmes, still they also ask for donations. Where is the money going?” Karpagam said.

As Shatrugna noted, “The children deserve these meals. Nobody needs to beg for money on their behalf.”