– Mita Mukherjee

Eggs will no longer be served to students of state-run schools in Kolkata and only pure vegetarian food will be provided to them under the midday meal scheme.

Swapan Dasgupta, finance minister of the new BJP government, on Monday announced during his budget speech that the material cost of mid-day meals would be increased from Rs 6.78 to Rs 10 per student. He further said that ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) will be entrusted with the responsibility of serving midday meals to over one lakh students studying till class VIII in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) area.

ISKCON vice-president and spokesperson, Radharamn Das told EducationWorld eggs will be completely removed from the mid-day meal menu and only pure vegetarian food will be served. But he said all possible items will be included to ensure children eat nutritious food.

“Non-vegetarian food will not be served. We will provide pure vegetarian food. Onion, garlic too will not be used for cooking any food item. But we will definitely make sure that whatever food we provide will be highly nutritious and healthy for young school students,” Das told EducationWorld.

According to the Hindu religious organisation, the daily menu is yet to be finalised but certain items like paneer, rajma, dal, pulses and soya chunks which are good sources of protein will be regularly provided. Milk will not be served but milk products like kheer, sweets, halwa will be a part of the meal on a regular basis.

As of now, students in Bengal were provided eggs once a week. On the remaining days of the week they were served rice, dal and potato curry.

Heads of some schools said on some occasions, they would often generate funds from their own resources to serve chicken to students as many of them would not eat eggs.

The Central government sponsored mid-day meal scheme was introduced under the National Programme on Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) way back in 1995 when it had been planned to provide a dry ration of 100 gm per student with the primary objective of checking student dropout. Later in 2004, the scheme was upgraded and a decision was taken to serve cooked food with 300 calories and 8 to 12 gms protein to all government school children.

Das said the organisation had been serving mid-day meals in 22 cities across eight states covering over 12 lakh students since 2004.

“In states like Maharashtra, we serve idli and dosa. Students are served puri and chapati in northern states. The menu depends on the staple diet of a state,” Das said.

In Bengal, the organisation will start with Kolkata as its pilot project. The project is likely to be extended in other districts.

The decision to remove eggs from the mid-day meal menu, however, has triggered a controversy with a large section in the Opposition parties alleging the BJP government intends to gradually impose restrictions on consumption of non-vegetarian food.

Bengal school education minister Dipak Burman had said after the announcement that there are many people across the world who follow a vegetarian diet and are living healthy lives.

Also read: Bengal Budget 2026: Major announcements for education sector