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The scheme, a flagship welfare programme of the Central government, provides cooked meals to children enrolled in government and government-aided schools.

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The number of schools covered under India’s central mid-day meal programme has fallen by more than 84,000 over the past five years, government data presented to Parliament showed on Wednesday.

Coverage under the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman scheme declined from about 1.11 million schools in 2020-21 to roughly 1.03 million in 2024-25, according to figures shared by the Union Ministry of Education.

The scheme, a flagship welfare programme of the Central government, provides cooked meals to children enrolled in government and government-aided schools.

The steepest drop occurred in 2021-22, when the number of covered schools fell by 35,574 from the previous year, Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary said in a written reply to a question in Parliament.

Coverage continued to decline in subsequent years, falling by 7,604 schools in 2022-23, 9,509 in 2023-24 and 31,766 in 2024-25, the data showed.

Uttar Pradesh recorded the largest reduction among states, with the number of schools under the scheme falling by 25,361 over five years. Madhya Pradesh saw a decline of more than 22,000 schools, while Assam reported a reduction of 9,321 schools during the same period.

Chaudhary said the responsibility for implementing the scheme rests primarily with state governments and Union Territories. Meals are served for an average of 220 days a year, he said, adding that around 8.5 crore students avail of the meals daily against an enrolment of about 11 crore students.

The minister also reported three incidents of food contamination or substandard meal quality in 2025-26 so far. All affected children were treated and discharged from hospital, with no fatalities reported.

In April, the Central government increased the per-student cooking cost under the scheme, raising it to Rs 6.7 per day for kindergarten to Class 5 students and to Rs 10.1 for Classes 6 to 8, according to media reports.

The scheme was allocated Rs 12,467 crore in 2024-25, later revised to Rs 10,000 crore, of which Rs 5,421.9 crore had been spent by February 2025. For 2025-26, the Union Budget has allocated Rs 12,500 crore.

Separate data presented in Parliament earlier this month showed a steady decline in the number of government schools nationwide over the past six years, alongside a rise in schools with very low student enrolment.

The total number of government schools fell from about 1.03 million in 2019-20 to 1.01 million in 2024-25, with the sharpest declines reported in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Jammu and Kashmir.