India’s high food inflation leaves little in the pockets of poor school children By Reuters

By Jatindra, Saurabh Sharma and Ira Dugal

ODISHA, India (Reuters) – Nearly two years of rising food prices in India are leaving little in the coffers of poor children, as government-subsidized school meals dwindle due to rising prices of vegetables, fruits and pulses.

This thirty-year-old program, which aims to get poor children into school and provide them with basic food, is bringing about the success of food inflation in the poorest nation and increasing inequality in the world’s fastest growing economy.

Reuters interviews with teachers of 21 schools in four states, a dozen families and researchers show that schools are forced to use essential ingredients as the food budget under the program has not increased in the past two years despite rising food prices.

This program includes approximately 120 million children in government schools and government-aided schools up to class 8, according to information available on the program’s website. Teachers and school administrators manage the quality of food served.

“The budget for the mid-day meal program is not indexed to inflation as it should be, putting the quality of food at risk,” said Dipa Sinha, an independent economist and researcher working with the ‘Right For Food’ campaign, an informal non-governmental network of organizations and individuals.

“Although the government provides free grain for this food, that does not compensate for the reduction of other nutritious ingredients such as vegetables, pulses, milk and eggs due to insufficient budget,” said Sinha.

An example of this is 8-year-old Ranjit Nayak, who lives in the village of Ghugudipada, 150 kilometers from Bhubaneshwar, the capital of the eastern Indian state of Odisha.

Ranjit’s family of five lives on a daily wage of about 250 Indian rupees ($2.98) and can feed him and his 4-year-old brother little more than boiled rice for most days.

Usually, the school provides his first meal of the day, but the increase in the price of food has left an unacceptable taste in recent times.

“My son is sometimes satisfied with the school meal, but other days it is yellow water with no dali (lentils) at all,” said Arati Nayak, Ranjit’s 26-year-old mother who weaves dry leaves from disposable plates for Rs. -25 per day.

The rising cost of cooking oil, vegetables and potatoes has made it difficult to provide nutritious meals to students, said Chhabi Nayak, head of the Ghugudipada school management committee.

The school chooses cheaper varieties of lentils and skips nutritious vegetables like carrots to keep the budget in check, he said.

GREAT FOOD PRICES

Food inflation in India reached 6.3% between June 2020 and June 2024, a central bank study published in August showed, compared to 2.9% four years ago. It decreased slightly in July and August due to the statistical results but is expected to rise again last month.

Apart from this price hike, the minimum budget of 5.45 rupees per primary school student and 8.17 rupees per lower primary school student under the scheme has not been increased since October 2022.

The decision to increase the allocation for the year 2024-25 has been delayed due to the election, said the official of the Department of Education, who is in charge of the program, declined to be disclosed as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

An email to the state Department of Education was not returned.

Inflation has been particularly persistent in crops, a sector that has seen inflation rise by more than 10% in 22 months of the past four years, according to central bank research. Pulses and oil experienced double-digit inflation for 24 months and eggs for 15 months during this period.

16 of the 21 teachers who spoke to Reuters said that inflation has affected the existing budget, making it difficult to provide students with nutritious meals.

Fruits have not been provided for the past six months and green vegetables have been replaced with pumpkins, said a teacher in Sitapur district in Uttar Pradesh state, who declined to be identified for fear of being targeted by government officials.

The milk given to the students is a little more than white water, said the teacher, suggesting to be diluted with water.

Enough Calories?

The government’s plan requires each elementary school meal to include 450 calories and 12 grams of protein, rising to 700 calories and 20 grams of protein for high school.

Although periodic surveys are conducted, nutrient levels are not measured or recorded daily, educators and researchers say.

No recent research is publicly available on the nutritional impact of midday meal inflation and reduction on students due to limited data availability.

“But if the quality of food for students goes down in a country where almost 50% of the population does not have access to healthy food, it can have an impact on healthy eating,” said Sinha.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2024 report on ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition’, 55% of India’s population could not afford healthy food by 2022 – the latest data available.

The impact of high food inflation must be seen against India’s low wages, said Rajendran Narayanan, Azim Premji University, who heads the university’s ‘Data, Democracy and Development’ programme.

Narayanan pointed to the union government committee’s 2019 recommendation for a national minimum wage of 375 rupees per day, based on the amount of money needed to ensure adequate nutrition for each person.

By 2022-23, 300 million workers would earn less than that threshold, Narayanan said, based on findings from a government labor survey.

This makes it important to expand nutrition programs in times of inflation but the “political will” to do so is lacking, Narayanan said.

($1 = 83.9650 Indian rupees)