A lifeline for its working class, Maharashtra’s affordable lunch scheme is being starved of funds

Through the day, Santosh Pawar loads and unloads heavy carts at a wholesale vegetable and fruit market in Navi Mumbai.

Every afternoon at 1 pm, he queues outside the Rajyog Fastfood restaurant along with other labourers for lunch.

He pays Rs 10, gets his picture clicked against a banner with ‘Shiv Bhojan’ printed on it, and moves on to the counter to receive his meal – rice, a bowl of dal, two chapatis, and a bowl of cooked vegetables.

Pawar earns between Rs 600 and 700 for a day’s labour, most of which he sends to his family living in rural Maharashtra.

Hot, cooked and affordable meals go a long way for workers like Pawar. “The food is good, the wait time is short. I eat a lot and I end up saving Rs 2,100 every month,” the 35-year-old worker said.

Roshan Lal, a migrant labourer from Ambedkar Nagar in Uttar Pradesh who also works at the wholesale market, agrees. “We save so much money because of this thali,” he said. “At night, for instance, I end up paying Rs 80 for dinner.”

Lal was referring to the Shiv Bhojan Thali, a scheme to provide subsidised lunches to poor people that was launched in January 2020 by the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, an alliance of Congress, Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena.

Under the scheme, any person, except government employees, can avail a lunch for Rs 10 across the state.

Every day, over 1.7 lakh thalis are sold across Maharashtra, with 1,878 operators providing the meals.

The government subsidises the cost of the meals. In urban areas, the government pays Rs 40 a plate to the operator, and Rs 25 a plate in rural areas.

The government also fixes the number of plates – between 100 and 200 – each operator can sell. “Sometimes there are more people than our mandate of 175 plates,” said owner of Rajyog Fast Food, Chandrashekhar Jadhav. “We don’t turn them away. We give them the leftover food for free.”

But Jadhav’s resources are stretched thin. For six months now, the government has not been paying him for the meals.

As a result, he has not paid a month’s salary to his four kitchen staffers – one of them is physically disabled – and is unable to pay grocery bills. “I have a bank loan of Rs 30 lakh on my restaurant,” Jadhav said. “I may be forced to shut down.”

The Ladki Bahin effect?

Like Jadhav, several Shiv Bhojan thali operators are staring at heavy losses. In the last six months, the Maharashtra government – now led by the Mahayuti alliance – has not paid them their dues.

Kayyum Shaikh, from the Maharashtra Shiv Bhojan Kriti Samiti, said nearly 300 operators have shut their centres because they could no longer afford to operate.

Shaikh and many operators Scroll spoke to said they held several meetings with food and civil supplies minister Chhagan Bhujbal and finance minister Ajit Pawar.

Pawar allegedly told them the state had no funds, and Bhujbal informed them that funds had been diverted to the popular Ladki Bahin scheme, for which an annual budget of Rs 36,000 crore was announced for 2025-’26.

The scheme, which offers women a monthly fund of Rs 1,500, was touted as a major factor behind the alliance’s decisive win in the state assembly elections last year.

But while Ladki Bahin turned the tables for Mahayuti, it put a strain on the state's finances and squeezed funds for other welfare schemes.

For instance, the Shiv Bhojan Thali scheme needs an allotment of Rs 267 crore a year. But, for 2025-’26, only Rs 70 crore was sanctioned. “An amount of Rs 21 crore has been released so far,” said Kayyum Shaikh, from the Maharashtra Shiv Bhojan Kriti Samiti. “That is not enough to pay the pending bills of all operators.”

Santosh Gaikwad, deputy secretary at the food, civil supplies and consumer protection department, said he could not comment on the fund diversion towards the Ladki Bahin scheme.

But he agreed that the department had received less funds this year and several schemes have been affected. “We did not get the usual budgeted amount for the Shiv Bhojan scheme,” Gaikwad said.

The department has asked the finance department for more funds.

Not surprisingly, workers are going unpaid. In Rajyog restaurant, Kavita Jadhav works eight hours for a monthly salary of Rs 15,000. But she has not been paid her salary for a month.

Jadhav questions the state government’s choices. “I do not get the benefit of the Ladki Bahin scheme,” she said, while rolling out chapatis. “There are women who sit at home and get funds from the government while we are working hard and still not getting our money. How is this fair?”

‘The poorest benefit’

Several states have in the past provided affordable, hygienic meals for the poor and the working class. Since 2013, the Tamil Nadu government has been running Amma Canteens, where residents can get idli, sambhar rice and curd rice, with idli costing as low as Rs 1.

A year later, Telangana government’s Annapurna Canteens began serving meals of dal, rice and curry for Rs 5 a plate. Odisha began the Aahaar scheme in 2015 to provide rice, dal cooked with vegetables, and pickle for Rs 5. Haryana runs the Atal Kisan Mazdoor Canteens, with thalis priced between Rs 10 and Rs 25.

“Such schemes not just help the destitute or those who rely on people’s generosity for alms, it is also important for those who earn the bare minimum,” said Reetika Khera, a development economist at IIT Delhi.

Khera added that hot cooked meals provide food security, potential nutrition and a meaningful economic subsidy. “Subsidised canteen meals help the poorly-paid working class save precious cash,” she said. “It is especially important for the thousands who migrate for work but have no cooking facility.”

Shaikh, from the Maharashtra Shiv Bhojan Kriti Samiti, said the beneficiaries of the scheme included ragpickers, migrant labourers, rickshaw drivers and relatives of poor patients who travel to cities for treatment. “The poorest benefit from this scheme,” he said.

But the delay in funds can derail the scheme, experts warn. “If it is introduced as a political gimmick and not because it is a legal right of citizens, then such schemes last for a short while,” said Ravi Duggal, an independent researcher who analyses Maharashtra budgets. “Political will is very important to continue such schemes.”

Providers in debts

As the government squeezes funds, Shiv Bhojan operators are being forced to make difficult choices – either shut shop, take bank loans or mortgage jewellery.

Ramesh Patil, who runs the Nimantran restaurant in Mahul, the eastern suburb of Mumbai, said he last received his dues in February.

“I am unable to pay salaries and grocery bills,” he said. This month he took a bank loan of Rs 2 lakh to repay his creditors.

The government owes Jugad Agrawal, who runs a facility to provide 175 thalis in Bharat Nagar, Rs 13 lakh since March.

In mid-September he took a loan of Rs 3.5 lakh. “I fear if I shut this service, my dues won’t be paid by the government, so I am carrying on somehow,” he told Scroll.

In Nagpur, where there are 208 Shiv Bhojan centres, Pushpraj Meshram runs a facility to provide 100 thalis daily. His monthly operating cost is Rs 60,000-Rs 80,000. Without payments since March, Meshram took a loan of Rs 1.30 lakh against his wife’s jewellery.

“I am continuing to serve people because they are grateful for this scheme and depend on us for their lunch,” he said. “We are hopeful the government will resolve it and hence continue to operate.”

‘Why give money for free?’

Even beneficiaries of the Ladki Bahin payouts are critical of its implications for other welfare schemes.

Sangeeta Sorge is one of them.

As a cook at the Rajyog restaurant, she earns Rs 15,000 every month and receives a monthly transfer of Rs 1,500 from the Maharashtra government.

But while Sorge has not received her salary last month, the Ladki Bahin payouts arrive promptly each month. “If you ask me, Rs 1,500 is nothing,” she said. “It can’t buy rations. Instead of giving money for free under Ladki Bahin, the government should encourage employment for women.”

Anita Madale, is in charge of a self-help group that runs a Shiv Bhojan thali in Mumbai’s Kandivali that feeds gig workers, domestic workers, and daily wagers.

Tired of waiting since January for their dues, members of the Savitri Phule Mahila Bachat Gath are now running the centre “with their own savings”.

Madale blames the Mahayuti government’s decision to approve the Ladki Bahin scheme. “It is because of this that many smaller beneficial schemes are suffering,” she said. “Women should be encouraged to work and earn, not sit at home and get free money.”