Use fortified wheat, edible oil in cooking mid-day meals: Centre tells States

The Mid-day meal guidelines of 2006 and food safety guidelines issued by the Ministry in 2015 for school level kitchen provide that only double fortified salts should be used for cooking mid-day meal.

The centre has asked states to ensure that fortified wheat and edible oil with double fortified salt only is used in cooking mid-day meals for children in schools covered under the scheme.

The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has also suggested the state governments to encourage the use of green leafy vegetables like spinach, drumsticks, and “other locally available and culturally acceptable” iron-rich vegetables in the mid-day meal menu of the schools.

In a recent advisory to the States, the Ministry also called for a status report on the use of fortified food items in mid-day meal.

“A child suffering from micronutrient deficiencies finds it difficult to concentrate and work on a sustainable basis. You are therefore advised to take suitable steps to ensure mandatory fortification of the food articles used in the mid-day meal scheme with immediate effect,” school education department secretary of the HRD Ministry Anil Swarup said in a recent letter to chief secretaries of all States.

This comes about a year after the Centre decided that double fortified salt with iron and iodine, wheat flour fortified with iron, folic acid and vitamin B-12 and edible oil fortified with vitamin A and D should be considered for mandatory fortification through mid-day meal scheme along with Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and public distribution system (PDS).

The Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare have already taken a joint initiative to towards ensuring fortification of food items to be supplied to beneficiaries of various schemes.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India operationalised the Food Safety and Standards (Fortification of Foods) Regulation in 2016. The Mid-day meal guidelines of 2006 and food safety guidelines issued by the Ministry in 2015 for school level kitchen provide that only double fortified salts should be used for cooking mid-day meal.

“I shall appreciate if you could kindly provide information on the current position as well as the action taken to promote the mandatory use of the double fortified salt, fortified wheat flour and fortified edible oil in mid-day meal,” the HRD Ministry Secretary stated in his letter to the chief secretaries.