Mid-Day Meal not served? RTI to fix it

Meena's daughter, in Class 4 at the government primary school in their village, came home hungry again. “No food today, Amma,” she said. For three weeks running, the mid-day meal had either not been cooked or had been a thin watery dal with no grain. Other parents grumbled at the school gate but nobody had proof. The cook said the grain had not arrived. The headmaster said it was a “supply problem” and shrugged. Meena did not want a fight; she wanted her child fed, and she wanted to know where the food was going.

This is the situation the mid-day meal RTI is built for. The meal is not a favour from the school; it is a legal entitlement of every child up to Class 8 in a government or government-aided school. When it stops, the answer is not to argue at the gate. The answer is to file a single, precise RTI application that forces the education department to put its records on paper. Once the registers, grain receipts, and hygiene audits are in your hand, the problem usually fixes itself. This page shows you exactly how to do that, step by step, in plain language.

Three layers of law back your child's mid-day meal. Knowing them turns a vague complaint into a firm legal demand.

1. The Supreme Court order in PUCL v. Union of India (Writ Petition 196 of 2001). On 28 November 2001, the Supreme Court turned the mid-day meal scheme into a legal entitlement and directed that every government and government-assisted primary school serve a cooked meal of at least 300 calories and 8 to 12 grams of protein on at least 200 days a year. The Court grounded this in the right to food being part of the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is the bedrock: a court-ordered right, not a scheme that officials may switch off at will.
2. The National Food Security Act 2013, Section 5. This statute makes the entitlement concrete. Section 5(1)(b) gives every child up to Class 8, or in the 6 to 14 years age group, one free mid-day meal every school day (except holidays) in all schools run by local bodies, the government, and government-aided schools. Sub-section (2) adds that the school must also provide cooking, drinking water, and sanitation facilities. The nutritional norms sit in Schedule II: 450 calories and 12 grams of protein for primary classes, and 700 calories and 20 grams of protein for upper primary classes, per child per meal.
3. The PM POSHAN Scheme. The mid-day meal scheme was renamed and restructured as the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) Scheme, a Centrally Sponsored Scheme run by the Department of School Education and Literacy in the Ministry of Education. The Cabinet approved it for the period 2021-22 to 2025-26. The operative comprehensive guidelines were issued by a D.O. letter dated 21 December 2022 from the Joint Secretary (EE-I), Ministry of Education — not the 2021 date, which was only the Cabinet approval year. Material and cooking costs were raised by 9.5 percent (CPI-RL based) effective 1 May 2025: Rs 6.78 per child per day for Balvatika and Primary, and Rs 10.17 per child per day for Upper Primary, shared between Centre and state at 60:40 for most states, 90:10 for the North-East and Himalayan states, and 100 percent for Union Territories without a legislature.

These three together mean that when the meal stops, someone in the chain — school, block, district, or state — is breaking a statutory and court-ordered duty. Your RTI asks them to show the paper trail that proves it.

Some officials will tell you mid-day meal records are “internal” or “confidential.” They are wrong. Section 4(1)(b)(xii) of the RTI Act 2005 requires every public authority to suo motu (on its own) proactively disclose particulars of subsidy programmes — including beneficiaries, norms, and expenditure. The PM POSHAN scheme is exactly such a subsidy programme. Its beneficiary lists, foodgrain and cash receipts, expenditure, hygiene audits, and FSSAI compliance records fall squarely within this mandatory disclosure.

The Central Information Commission has said the same thing: mid-day meal scheme records — beneficiaries, rations, and expenditure — are Section 4(1)(b)(xii) subsidy-programme material and must be proactively disclosed. See the related case page Mid-day Meal scheme records — CIC for the Commission's reasoning. So when you ask, you are not asking for a favour; you are asking the authority to do what the law already orders it to do.

On top of this, the PM POSHAN Guidelines (December 2022) make a social audit mandatory in every district, and monitoring is done through the MIS portal and the Automated Monitoring System (AMS), plus periodic Joint Review Missions. These audit and monitoring records are also disclosable.

File two applications, not one. Mid-day meal delivery splits across two levels, and each holds different records.

1. The District Education Officer (DEO) is the district-level authority for school operations. The DEO holds the daily meal registers, cook-attendance registers, and school-level hygiene reports. This is your first stop.
2. The State MDM Cell (the state PM POSHAN office, usually housed in the Directorate of School Education) holds the grain pipeline: allocations from the Food Corporation of India, dispatch to blocks, expenditure against the material cost share, and the FSSAI licensing chain for centralised kitchens. File here for the supply-and-money trail.

A common mistake is to file only at the school or only at the block office. The school has the daily register but not the grain-receipt ledger from FCI; the state cell has the grain ledger but not your school's daily count. Filing at both and asking each for the records it holds is what closes the gaps.

Ask for exactly these five. They are the set that, taken together, shows whether the meal is being served, cooked by real staff, supplied with real grain, checked for safety, and sourced from a licensed kitchen.

1. Daily meal register for the last 30 days — the school's own record of how many children were served, what was cooked, and whether the meal was actually served each day. A gap on the dates your child reported “no food” is your proof.
2. Cook-attendance register — shows whether the cook and helper actually reported for work on the days the meal was missing. This separates “cook absent” from “grain absent.”
3. Grain-receipt register — the ledger of rice and dal received from the block or FCI and issued to the kitchen. This is where diversion usually shows up: grain entered the school's books but never reached the pot.
4. Latest hygiene audit report — the PM POSHAN Guidelines require monitoring of kitchen and toilet hygiene. Ask for the most recent inspection or social-audit report for the school or the centralised kitchen that feeds it.
5. FSSAI licence and compliance of the supplier or centralised kitchen — under the Food Safety and Standards (Safe and Wholesome Food for School Children) Regulations 2018, read with the FSS Act 2006, all centralised mid-day meal kitchens run by food businesses must be FSSAI licensed or registered. FSSAI even has a specific Kind-of-Business category called “Mid-Day Meal Caterer (Centralised Kitchen)“ and “Mid-Day Meal Canteen.” Asking for the licence number and the last compliance check is a powerful accountability handle, because an unlicensed kitchen is a clear, documented violation.

Copy this, fill in the blanks, and hand it in (or send it by registered post). Use one copy for the DEO and one for the State MDM Cell, changing the addressee.

To: The Public Information Officer
Office of the District Education Officer / State MDM Cell
[District / State]

Subject: Application under Section 6(1) of the RTI Act 2005
        — PM POSHAN mid-day meal delivery, quality and supply at
        [School name], [Block], [District]

1. Name: [Your name]
2. Address: [Your address with PIN]
3. Particulars of information required:

   (a) A certified copy of the daily mid-day meal register of
       [School name] for the last 30 working days, showing children
       fed, menu cooked, and whether the meal was served each day.
   (b) A certified copy of the cook and helper attendance register
       for the same 30 days.
   (c) A certified copy of the foodgrain receipt and issue register
       (rice, dal, etc.) for [School name] for the current quarter,
       showing quantity received and quantity issued to the kitchen.
   (d) The latest hygiene audit / social audit / inspection report
       for [School name] or the centralised kitchen supplying it.
   (e) The FSSAI licence or registration number and the latest
       compliance status of the centralised kitchen or supplier
       providing meals to [School name].

4. I am a citizen of India. The information is not exempt under
   Section 8 of the RTI Act.
5. Fee of Rs 10 is paid by [Indian Postal Order / cash against
   receipt / Demand Draft] in favour of the Accounts Officer.

Date: [Date]                    Signature: [Yours]

[Enclose IPO / DD for Rs 10]

A few points on the template. The Rs 10 Central Government fee is set by the RTI Rules 2012 and can be paid by cash against a receipt, by Indian Postal Order, Demand Draft, or banker's cheque in favour of the Accounts Officer of the public authority, or electronically through the rtionline.gov.in portal if the authority is Central. If you hold a BPL card, the fee is waived on producing a BPL certificate. The normal reply time is 30 days; where life or liberty is at stake it is 48 hours; if you file through a Common Service Centre acting as a CAPIO, it is 35 days.

After 30 days, one of three things has happened. Here is the ladder for each.

1. You got the records. Read them against what your child reported. A blank in the daily register on the days meals were missing, or grain booked in but not issued, is your evidence. Take it to the School Management Committee (SMC) and to the DEO in writing. In most cases, the meal resumes within days because the records have now been seen by someone outside the school.
2. You got a refusal or no reply. If the PIO refuses or the 30 days pass silently, file a first appeal under Section 19(1) of the RTI Act with the First Appellate Authority (usually a senior officer in the same department, named in the PIO's reply or on the authority's website). The appeal must be filed within 30 days of the refusal or the due date. The Appellate Authority must decide within 30 more days.
3. The first appeal also fails. File a second appeal with the Central Information Commission (for Central authorities) or the State Information Commission (for state authorities) under Section 19(3). There is no fee. The Commission can order disclosure and penalise the PIO for delay without reasonable cause.
4. If the root problem is a violation of the child's entitlement — no meal at all, rotten grain, an unlicensed kitchen — your records now support a complaint to the District Magistrate / Collector (who supervises PM POSHAN at the district level), the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, or a writ petition before the High Court under Article 226 for enforcement of the NFSA and the PUCL order. The RTI records are what turn a complaint into a provable case.

1. Filing only at the school. The headmaster is rarely the PIO and often has no authority to release the grain ledger. File at the DEO and the State MDM Cell.
2. Skipping the FSSAI licence ask. This is the single most powerful item. An unlicensed centralised kitchen is a clean, documented breach, and FSSAI law gives you a regulator to complain to as well.
3. Asking vague “why is the meal bad?” questions. Ask for specific, named registers and reports. Officials must disclose records, not write essays. Specific asks get specific paper.
4. Filing alone when you could file together. A Parent-Teacher or SMC collective RTI is harder to ignore and protects any one parent from being singled out.
5. Forgetting the PM POSHAN monitoring tools. Cross-check the reply against the PM POSHAN MIS portal and the public dashboard before you escalate, so you can spot a doctored register.

1. Teacher attendance RTI — same record-driven approach for absent teachers.
2. RTE admission RTI — for the 25 percent RTE quota and admission denial.
3. Mid-Day Meal not served? File one RTI — the sibling field story for a single-school complaint.
4. Anganwadi services missing? File one RTI — the younger-child nutrition counterpart under ICDS.
5. Mid-day Meal scheme records — CIC — the CIC ruling that MDM records are Section 4(1)(b)(xii) material.

1. PM POSHAN Scheme — official guidelines page, Ministry of Education: https://pmposhan.education.gov.in/guideline.html
2. PM POSHAN comprehensive guidelines (December 2022) PDF: https://pmposhan.education.gov.in/Files/Guidelines/2023/Guidelines%20on%20PM%20POSHAN%20SCHEME.pdf
3. News on AIR / PIB — 9.5 percent material cost enhancement effective 1 May 2025: https://www.newsonair.gov.in/centre-enhances-material-cost-by-9-5-under-pm-poshan-scheme/
4. National Food Security Act 2013, Section 5 — Indian Kanoon: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/80427142/
5. National Food Security Act 2013 — India Code (NIC): https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/2113
6. PUCL v. Union of India, WP(C) 196 of 2001 — Supreme Court interim orders (Right to Food case): https://www.globalhealthrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/PUCL-v-Union-of-India.pdf
7. FSSAI — Kind of Business eligibility (Mid-Day Meal Caterer / Canteen licensing): https://fssai.gov.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/Eligibility_Kind_Business_04_05_2020.pdf
8. RTI Online FAQ — Rs 10 fee, modes of payment, timelines (RTI Rules 2012): https://rtionline.gov.in/faq.php
9. RTI Act 2005, Section 4(1)(b)(xii) — India Code (NIC): https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/2013

If this guide helped you get a child fed, two things keep this work going. First, grab The RTI Playbook — it bundles every citizen-RTI template and escalation ladder on this site into one ready reference. Second, if you can, donate to support the free RTI guides we publish; it costs nothing to use, but it costs us to keep accurate and verified.

Last reviewed: 3 July 2026.