PM POSHAN (Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman)

What is PM POSHAN?

PM POSHAN (Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman) is a Centrally Sponsored scheme of the Ministry of Education that provides one free hot cooked meal every school day to children in government and government-aided schools. It is the renamed and expanded version of the earlier Mid-Day Meal Scheme, relaunched in 2021 and extended to run in schools across the country.

According to the PM POSHAN portal, the scheme covers children from Bal Vatika (the pre-primary year) through Class VIII and reaches roughly 11.8 crore children in about 11.2 lakh government and government-aided schools, making it the world's largest school-feeding programme. Its twin aims are to improve the nutrition of school-age children and to encourage regular attendance and enrolment. PM POSHAN runs for the five-year cycle 2021-22 to 2025-26, backed by a central outlay of Rs 54,061.73 crore with a further Rs 31,733.17 crore contributed by states and union territories.

Key objectives

• Improve the nutritional status of children from Bal Vatika to Class VIII.
• Encourage poor children to attend school more regularly.
• Provide a hot cooked meal that meets set calorie and protein norms.
• Support local nutrition through kitchen gardens and community participation.

Main features

• One free hot cooked meal per school day for every enrolled child.
• Nutrition norms of about 450 calories/12 g protein for primary and 700 calories/20 g protein for upper primary classes.
• Cost of ingredients and fuel shared between the Centre and states (60:40 for general states, 90:10 for special-category states and UTs).
• Delivered through schools, with no separate application by families.

Who is eligible for PM POSHAN?

Children are covered if:

• They are enrolled in a government, government-aided or special training centre school.
• They are studying from Bal Vatika (pre-primary) up to Class VIII.

The meal is universal within these schools, it is served to every enrolled child on each school day regardless of caste, gender or family income, so there is no income test and no waiting list.

Who cannot apply / is not covered:

• Children in fully private, unaided schools are not covered.
• Students above Class VIII (Classes IX and above) are outside the scheme.
• Families cannot apply for a personal cash benefit; PM POSHAN is a meal delivered at school, not a Direct Benefit Transfer to households.

What documents are required for PM POSHAN?

PM POSHAN has no separate application form for families, so no personal documents are collected for the meal itself.

How to apply for PM POSHAN

PM POSHAN is not an individual-benefit scheme, so parents do not fill a scheme form. The steps below explain how a child comes to receive the meal, and how a school is brought under the scheme.

1. Enrol the child in a government, government-aided or special training centre school covering Bal Vatika to Class VIII. Enrolment automatically makes the child eligible for the daily meal.
2. The school head registers the school's enrolment numbers on the PM POSHAN management system so meals and funds are provisioned for each child.
3. The State or UT government and the school-level committee organise cooking, ingredients and the cooks-cum-helpers, funded jointly by the Centre and state.
4. If a school is not yet serving meals, raise it with the District Nodal Officer or the State Department of School Education, who bring eligible schools under the scheme.

Because the meal is served at school, there is no household application, no fee and no cash transfer to families.

How much benefit does PM POSHAN provide?

PM POSHAN provides a free hot cooked meal on every school day. The meal must meet nutrition norms of about 450 calories and 12 grams of protein for primary classes (using around 100 grams of foodgrain) and 700 calories and 20 grams of protein for upper primary classes (around 150 grams of foodgrain), and typically includes cereals, pulses, vegetables and oil.

According to figures effective from 1 May 2025, the material (cooking) cost is Rs 6.78 per child per school day for Bal Vatika and primary classes and Rs 10.17 per child per school day for upper primary classes, revised upward from the earlier Rs 6.19 and Rs 9.29. This cost covers pulses, vegetables, cooking oil, salt, condiments and fuel, and is shared between the Centre and the states. When the value of the foodgrain supplied free of cost is added, the full per-meal cost works out to roughly Rs 12.13 for a primary child and Rs 17.62 for an upper primary child.

Foodgrains are supplied through the Food Corporation of India and the public distribution system: about 100 grams of foodgrain per primary child and 150 grams per upper primary child each school day. The Centre also bears a share of transport, the cook-cum-helper honorarium and kitchen-cum-store costs. The cost-sharing pattern is 60:40 between the Centre and general-category states, 90:10 for the north-eastern, Himalayan and three other special- category states, and 100 per cent central funding for union territories without a legislature.

Who cooks the PM POSHAN meal and how is quality maintained?

Meals under PM POSHAN are prepared on-site by cook-cum-helpers engaged at each school, most of them women and many from Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and minority households. According to the Ministry of Education, a cook-cum-helper receives an honorarium of at least Rs 1,000 per month, which several states top up from their own funds. Schools are meant to maintain a kitchen-cum-store and follow prescribed hygiene and food-safety norms, and cooked meals are tasted by a teacher or a member of the School Management Committee before being served to children.

To improve nutrition and community ownership, PM POSHAN encourages three additional practices:

• School Nutrition (Kitchen) Gardens: schools grow vegetables, fruit and herbs on their premises to add fresh produce to the meal and to teach children about food and farming.
• Tithi Bhojan. A community-participation practice in which people voluntarily provide a special meal or supplementary food to children on festivals, birthdays and anniversaries, in addition to the regular meal.
• Social audit: every district is required to conduct social audits of the scheme so that parents and the community can verify meals served, quality and fund use.

Under the revamped scheme, provision was also made for supplementary nutrition in aspirational districts and districts with a high prevalence of anaemia, and for direct benefit transfer of cooking costs to school accounts to cut delays.

How PM POSHAN is monitored

1. Schools record daily meals served on the PM POSHAN management information system.
2. School Management Committees and parents oversee food quality and attendance at the school level.
3. District and State officials review coverage and release of funds and foodgrains.

Help and grievance redressal

• School head teacher: first point of contact for meal quality or coverage issues.
• District Nodal Officer / State Department of School Education: for unresolved complaints about a school not serving meals.
• PM POSHAN portal: pmposhan.education.gov.in publishes scheme guidelines and state-level information.

PM POSHAN is fully free for children. No school or official may charge a family for the meal, and there is no separate registration a parent needs to pay for.