In West Bengal, keep egg on the menu
The first budget of the Suvendu Adhikari government in West Bengal has drawn attention for two contrasting decisions on school nutrition . On the one hand, it has substantially increased the per-child allocation for mid-day meals, raising the material cost from Rs 6.78 to Rs 10, signalling a welcome recognition that better nutrition requires greater public investment. Yet the decision to hand the running of mid-day meals in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area to the religious organisation ISKCON effectively excludes one of the staples from the menu — eggs. The defence by CM Adhikari — “You will get good food to eat. You will get pure food, nothing to worry about” — and by state education minister Dipak Burman — “There is no logic behind the idea that children must consume eggs, especially to fulfil their nutritional needs” — only exacerbates concerns. By imposing a vegetarian ideal in a culturally varied state, the move depletes the menu of one of the country’s most important welfare programmes. The nutritional case for retaining eggs is compelling. The National Family Health Survey-6, released last month, shows that although stunting among children under five years has declined, nearly three out of every 10 children continue to be affected. West Bengal has long grappled with significant levels of child undernutrition and anaemia among both children and women. Eggs remain one of the most effective, economical and familiar sources of protein. The proposed substitutes — paneer, soyabean, rajma and pulses — undoubtedly have nutritional value, but ensuring their availability and acceptance at scale is far more complex. Food in India has long been bound up in questions of caste, religion, and social power. In the weeks before the watershed assembly elections in April, the BJP went to great lengths to reassure voters that Bengal’s culinary traditions would remain untouched under its stewardship. The removal of eggs from mid-day meals in schools — a template followed in several BJP-ruled states — sits uneasily alongside those assurances, particularly in a state where 98 per cent of people consume non-vegetarian food. The Adhikari government must reconsider its decision.
- 1The mid-day meal scheme is anchored in the constitutional directive under Article 47, which makes raising nutrition and public health a primary duty of the state, and was reinforced by the Supreme Court's 2001 order in the PUCL right-to-food case mandating cooked meals in schools. Handing menus to a religious organisation raises questions about secular governance under Articles 25 to 28. The editorial frames egg removal as a clash between welfare obligations and ideological food preferences.
- 2As domestic policy, school nutrition is now delivered through the centrally sponsored PM POSHAN scheme, which serves cooked meals to over one hundred million children across government schools. West Bengal's choice to raise spending yet narrow the menu shows how implementation choices at the state level can dilute a national programme's intent. The case illustrates the federal tension between central scheme design and state-level delivery decisions in India's cooperative-federal structure.
- 3Legally, the right to food flows from the expansive reading of Article 21's right to life, affirmed in People's Union for Civil Liberties versus Union of India, and is codified in the National Food Security Act of 2011, which guarantees meals to children aged six to fourteen. State menu decisions must operate within these statutory entitlements. Excluding a key protein source invites scrutiny over whether nutritional adequacy obligations under the Act are being met.
- 4The National Family Health Survey-6 shows nearly three in ten Indian children under five remain stunted, and ninety-eight percent of West Bengal's population eats non-vegetarian food, making eggs an economical and culturally familiar protein. The per-child material cost was raised from six rupees seventy-eight paise to ten rupees, yet the menu was simultaneously narrowed. Substitutes like paneer and soyabean cost more and face acceptance hurdles, so the change may weaken nutrition despite higher spending.