Schools covered under Centre’s mid-day meal programme drop by 84,400 in five years

The number of schools covered under the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman scheme to give students mid-day meals declined from 11.1 lakh in 2020-’21 to 10.3 lakh in 2024-’25, the Union government told Parliament on Wednesday.

This marks a reduction of 84,453 schools over five years.

The centrally-sponsored scheme is aimed at providing nutritious meals to students enrolled in government and aided schools.

The sharpest fall occurred between 2020-’21 and 2021-’22, when coverage declined by 35,574 schools, from 11.1 lakh to 10.8 lakh, said Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary in response to a query from Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh.

The number fell to 10.7 lakh in 2022-’23, down by 7,604 schools, and slipped further to 10.6 lakh in 2023-’24 – a dip of 9,509 schools.

It declined in 2024-’25 to 10.3 lakh, marking a reduction of 31,766 schools in a year, showed the data provided by the Union Ministry of Education.

Uttar Pradesh saw the steepest decline, with the number of schools covered under the scheme falling from 1.6 lakh in 2020-’21 to 1.4 lakh in 2024-’25. This meant that 25,361 schools lost coverage over five years.

Following this was Madhya Pradesh, where the number of schools covered under the scheme fell from 1.1 lakh to over 88,000 schools in the same period. Assam saw a drop from 53,427 to 44,106 schools in five years, which was a reduction of 9,321.

In his reply, Chaudhary noted that the “overall responsibility” to provide meals to children under the scheme lay with state governments and Union Territories.

“Under the scheme, meals are served to children for an average of 220 days per year,” the minister said. “Under the scheme, against the enrolment of 11 crore students on an average 8.5 crore students are availing hot cooked meals on daily basis in more than 10.35 lakh schools in all states/UTs.”

Chaudhary also said that three cases of food contamination, food poisoning and substandard meal quality were reported during 2025-’26. “All the children reported ill during these incidents were treated and discharged from hospital and no casualty was reported,” he said.

In April, the Union government raised the material cost for midday meals under the scheme from Rs 6.1 to Rs 6.7 per student per day for kindergarten and Class 1 to Class 5, the Hindustan Times reported.

It also increased the cost from Rs 9.2 to Rs 10.1 for Class 6 to Class 8.

In 2024-’25, the Union government had allocated Rs 12,467.3 crore to the scheme, the newspaper reported. This amount was later revised to Rs 10,000 crore. However, only Rs 5,421.9 crore had been spent by February 2025.

For 2025-’26, Rs 12,500 crore has been allocated in the Union Budget for the scheme, according to the newspaper.

Decline in government schools

Earlier this month, data presented in Parliament also showed that there was steady decline in the number of government schools in country in the last six years, The Wire reported. The number of schools with zero or less than 10 student enrolments have also increased.

The number of government schools fell from 10.3 lakh in 2019-’20 to 10.1 lakh in 2024-’25, the news portal quoted Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan as saying on December 1.

The sharpest decline in this period was seen in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Jammu and Kashmir, The Wire reported.

In 2024-’25, the states with the highest number of school closures were Bihar at 1,890, Himachal Pradesh at 492 and Karnataka at 462. In the same period, the states with the highest number of low-enrolment schools were West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, according to the news portal.