Palghar (Maharashtra): Short, medium-built and outspoken, Sarika Shimpi beamed with pride as she recalled how her youngest son and daughter gave speeches at the village school here in this northern Maharashtra district for the 26 January Republic Day function in 2024 .

 “They spoke so clearly and confidently in front of teachers, other students and people from the village,” Sarika, 38. “I was happy.”

Sarika and her 41-year-old husband Eknath Shimpi, an itinerant mason, have three children, a 14-year-old son who is in a hostel 13 km away in the town and taluka headquarters of Mokhada for his high-school education, a seven-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son. 

The younger son and daughter live with them in Bedukpada, a village of around 300 people, living in houses with traditional tiled roofs. Most in the village rely on agriculture during monsoon and migrate to nearby towns after the kharif or autumn harvest. 

“The children in your cities are smart but the children in villages tend to be a little bit dull,” said Sarika. “I don’t want that for my children. I want them to study a lot and grow up to be intelligent, successful people. So, I take time out to sit with them after school to teach them.”

In addition to being attentive towards their children’s education, the couple also try their best to give them nutritious food. She said a nutritious meal was important for a child’s mind and body. 

“Nutritious meals will make the child’s body stronger,” said Sarika, “And it will be able to fight diseases better and a healthy child will be able to study better and become more intelligent.”

Better nutrition is associated with improved infant, child and maternal health, stronger immune systems, safer pregnancy and childbirth, lower risk of non-communicable diseases, lower disease risk, providing children lifelong benefits that include better productivity and higher incomes as adults.

Providing a nutrient-rich meal is not always possible for Sarika and Eknath, the only earning members of their 12-person family, which includes them, their three children, Eknath’s parents, three brothers and two of their wives. 

Sarika’s Rs 5,500 monthly payment as a helper in a government creche of anganwadi is the only fixed income in the family. Eknath does any work that he finds. Together, the family earns about Rs 10-12,000, all of which goes into household expenses, mostly food, said Eknath. 

There are no savings.

Eggs At School: Critical To Nutrition

“Nutrition is very important, but everything is also expensive,” said Eknath, “So, we try to do our best with the money we have.” The family largely relies on the rice and pulses they grow during the monsoon to sustain them all year long. 

“Whenever we go to the market and we can afford to, then we buy some fruits,” said Eknath, “We give most of it to the children.”

Eknath and Sarika were happy that the Maharashtra government in November 2023 started providing eggs in school mid-day meals, the 13th Indian state to do so over the last 30 years.

“We cannot afford eggs at home,” said Sarika, “Just one meal with one egg for each family member would cost us Rs 100. We cannot afford that regularly. So, it is good that children can get it from school.”

Like the Shimpis, 70% of Indians cannot afford a healthy diet and more than a third (35.5%) of children under five are stunted, meaning low height for age, a sign of chronic under-nutrition. In rural areas, this proportion is higher at 37.3%. 

India’s under-nutrition rate is the highest among the G-20 group of nations with the world’s largest economies, the presidency of which the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated in 2023.

But at a time when malnutrition continues to be a serious national concern (here, here and here), and eggs regarded as a chief and efficient way to boost nutrition, religious groups have increasingly objected to including nutrient-rich eggs in school meals. 

In 2015, The Maharashtra government started the A P J Abdul Kalam Amrut Yojana to provide eggs four times a week to children from six-months to three-years old and lactating and pregnant women in anganwadis in tribal areas. But in school midday meals, eggs were absent until the 2023 order.  

Less than three months after the eggs order was passed, the spiritual cells of Maharashtra’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena faction of chief minister Eknath Shinde pressured the government into amending the November 2023 order. 

"This decision will affect the beliefs of many religious people,” said Akshay Bhosle from Shiv Sena’s spiritual wing while urging the chief minister to reverse the decision. 

Akshay Bhosle said protests or even discussing them was “not right” because the chief minister was a “proud Hindu”.

Acharya Tushar Bhosle from the BJP’s spiritual cell said eggs should be “strictly removed from the menu” because, “If eggs are served, there is a possibility that a child from a pure vegetarian family may eat them unknowingly and damage his family tradition and hurt its religious sentiments”.

So, in January 2024, the government modified the eggs order to say they would not be served in Maharashtra schools where 40% of students vote against them. 

This is not only in Maharashtra. Across India, in 12 states where the BJP is in power, including coalition governments, eggs are not provided in school meals or in anganwadi centres.

Eggs are an important source of protein and contain all vitamins, except vitamin C, and could be useful in tackling India’s high levels of malnutrition (here and here). 

Parents from villages in Mokhada told Article 14 that rising costs, stagnant wages and employment opportunities made it difficult for them to consistently provide a healthy diet to their children. They said all else being the same, they would send their children to a school that provided eggs over one that did not.

Unaffordable Food & Chronic Malnutrition

The only job 40-year-old Mahindra Fuphane can get in his village, Bedukpada, is under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the 19-year-old make-work programme launched by the Congress government of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2005. 

But payments have become unreliable, said Fuphane. “I have still not been paid for the 24 days of work that I did before Diwali (2023),” said Fuphane, “Sometimes it comes quickly, sometimes it takes even a year.”

Without stable employment, most Mokhada residents migrate to towns and cities to find work. Fuphane regularly travels 90 km to Shahapur in Thane district to work as a construction labourer. There he earns Rs 500 per day, instead of the Rs 200 he would have got in his village. 

This is not enough to sustain the family, said Fuphane, “Even if we end up earning Rs 10,000, after reducing the amount spent there and the amount that I have to send home, there is not much left,” he said.

Most of the money he earned is spent on food, said Fuphane, adding that the amount of money in his pocket determines the nutritional quality of the family’s diet. 

“We buy whatever vegetable that we can afford,” said Fuphane, “If brinjal, ladyfinger get expensive, we just buy potatoes. And if we cannot afford that also, then we will just eat khichdi or bhakri-chutney (gruel or the local bread with chutney).”

Stagnant wages and rising costs is increasing economic distress in rural India, Article 14 reported in July 2023. From the interiors of Maharashtra, India’s richest state by size of the economy, we found how daily wages were stagnant, as inflation and rising costs pushed more Indians into poverty.

Fuphane who has three children—a 10-year-old, a 7-year-old and an 18 month old baby—said that whenever he can, he buys nutritious food for his children. 

“When I have the money, I will buy a kilogram of fruits or a few eggs so that the children can eat well and grow well,” he said.

Eknath, Sarika and their family can sustain themselves because they grow rice, pulses and even some spices, such as chillies and turmeric, in the monsoon. “We grow enough to last us for the full year,” said Sarika, “Every food product has become so expensive that if we had to buy everything, we would not be able to survive.”

In Mokhada’s Sakarwadi village, 36-year-old Anand Dore said he goes to the market on Saturday to buy food and other necessities for the week. 

“Today I left with Rs 700 in my pocket,” said Anand, “Of that Rs 100 was spent on petrol for the motorcycle. I bought some pulses, green leafy vegetables and a couple of water bottles for the children, and the money is over.” 

The pulses and the vegetables that he bought would last only three days, said Anand. “After that we will just eat the grains,” he said, pointing at the subsidised wheat that the family got for—Rs 2 a kg instead of the market price of Rs 30 per kg—from the public distribution system.

“Sometimes the ration gets delayed and we have had to sleep empty stomach,” said Anand, “All households in villages function like this. Some households might have run out of salt and turmeric, some might have run out of oil or chillies. When there is money there is food. Everyone makes do with whatever they have or can afford.”

“In many households in villages, families are not able to provide three full meals to their children,” said Eknath, “So, the one meal that the child gets from the school becomes important.”

Why Mid-Day Meals Need Eggs

The mid-day meal scheme, now called the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) Scheme was introduced in 1995 to improve nutrition levels of children while boosting enrollment, retention and attendance in schools. 

Under the programme, all students from class 1-8 in all government and government-aided schools get one hot meal.

Despite the programme guidelines mandating specific grams for each food group, the quality and nutritive content of these meals are often substandard, watered down or infested with worms. There have also been cases where children had to be hospitalised because the food was spoiled.

Moreover, these meals have been found to be largely cereal-based with pulses and vegetable content being inadequate. In Maharashtra, the meals were found to largely be consisting of dal-rice or khichdi, with no vegetables, fruits or supplementary nutritive items.

It is to fix this and to improve the nutritional value of the meal that the Maharashtra government, in November 2023 had announced that it would provide one egg a week to the children. The order also said that children would have the option to choose between the egg and a banana. This was the first time in 20 years since the scheme was introduced in the state that the government decided to provide eggs.

Eggs are considered to be a source of complete protein because they contain all of nine essential amino acids, and all vitamins, except Vitamin C. Moreover, they cannot be adulterated or watered-down, as dal often is, and are easily available nationwide.

Enriching the nutritional quality of the mid-day meal is important because more than a third of Indian children under five are stunted. Stunting, meaning low height for age is a sign of chronic or recurring undernutrition.

India has the third-highest proportion of stunted children in South Asia, after Afghanistan and Pakistan. In addition to stunting, wasting (low weight for height) and underweight (low weight for age) are key indicators to determine undernutrition.

As per the 2019-21 National Family Health Survey, 19.3% of children under five are wasted, while 32% are underweight. The Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) conducted in 2016-18 found that 22% of school-age children were stunted, and 10% were underweight.

“There is very little seriousness by elected representatives and bureaucrats to address the malnutrition crisis,” said Dr Sylvia Karpagam, a public health doctor and researcher working on the right to health and nutrition.

“Considering how unstable people’s livelihoods and incomes are, especially those from marginalised and vulnerable communities, the food related social security schemes are intended to tide families through difficult times,” said Karpagam. “Therefore these schemes need due diligence and scientific rigour in implementation.”

Cause & Effect

The effect of withdrawing eggs from the mid-day meal was clear in anganwadi centres in Mokhada taluka, where 92% of the population are Adivasis. 

Anganwadi workers in the state held a 46-day long protest up to 29 January 2024, which affected the nutrition of the children in the taluka, said 27-year-old Yogita Shimpi, a resource person for an NGO that works on malnutrition. 

“Since the anganwadis are closed, we are seeing an increase in malnutrition levels,” said Yogita. Mokhada schools were getting eggs four days a week under the A P J Abdul Kalam Amrut Yojana.

Of the 13,000 five to nine year olds surveyed in CNNS, 21.5% had Vitamin A deficiency, 18.2% had Vitamin D deficiency. A lower proportion of children who had a vegetarian diet with eggs had these deficiencies compared to children who had a vegetarian diet.

Similar effects were evident in Karnataka, where, between December 2021 and March 2022, the Karnataka government conducted a pilot study to discern the demand for eggs and the impact they would have on student health. 

As part of the study, the government gave students in Gadag districts vegetarian meals with milk, while students in Yadgir district were given eggs with bananas as an alternative. The data revealed that students who ate eggs gained more weight, improving their body mass index (BMI), a calculation based on height, weight and age to determine if a child is underweight or obese.

Randomised controlled trials have also shown an increase in both height for age as well as weight for age for children who ate an egg a day for six months, compared to children who did not consume eggs.

There is an overwhelming demand for eggs among students. 

Of almost half a million students surveyed by the Karnataka government, 80% chose eggs over banana and chikki (a bar made out of peanuts and jaggery or caramelised sugar). In Bedukpada’s anganwadi centre too, there is a “high demand” for eggs, said 51-year-old anganwadi worker Gangu Jadhav. 

“I have heard people say that they won’t go to the anganwadi today because it is not an egg-day,” said Jadhav.

The Pressure To Go Vegetarian

After the pilot study we mentioned previously, the Karnataka government in July 2022 announced it would give children either eggs, bananas or chikki. 

The announcement came after attempts made to introduce eggs failed in 1991, 2007 and 2016 due to opposition from religious groups, as in Maharashtra.

In Karnataka, the opposition came from leaders and seers from the Lingayat, Jain and Brahmin communities, who said it was against the interests of students from communities that were “purely vegetarian”. In Maharashtra, spiritual cells of the ruling BJP and Shiv Sena said eggs in mid-day meals “hurts the religious sentiments” of several communities.

Nonprofits contracted by the state governments to provide the mid-day meals, such as Akshaya Patra, have also opposed eggs in school meals (here, here and here). 

Akshaya Patra, which supplies meals to over 2.1 million children in 16 states and two union territories, is run by the International Society For Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a religious group that advocates a lacto-vegetarian diet devoid of meat, eggs, fish, onion and garlic.

Despite being paid by the government to provide mid-day meals, the organisation has refused to include eggs, onion or garlic in the meals.

Anti-egg sentiments have translated into policy decisions, especially in states where BJP, as we said, is in power or is part of a coalition government. 

In May 2023, the union government revised nutritional standards for school and anganwadi meals, removing from a draft report a provision that made eggs in these meals mandatory.

As per data obtained by Swati Narayan, academic and author of a book called Unequal: Why India Lags Behind its Neighbours, 13 states provided eggs in mid-day meals. Most of these (eight) were not ruled by the BJP. Of the 17 states, where BJP is in power or a part of coalition, only five provide eggs.

“There seems to be an unmistakable trend that BJP-ruled states mostly refuse to add eggs to school meal menus even in states with a high proportion of populations eating non-vegetarian foods,” said Narayan, who has been following the issue of eggs in schools since 2015 

“On the other hand in opposition-rules states especially in southern and eastern India, eggs are served multiple times each week,” said Narayan.

“Maharashtra is one of the only states where a BJP government has even tried to add eggs to the menu,” said Narayan, “Karnataka approved it in BJP times (sic), but only after sustained civil society campaigns, and [the BJP government] was soon after replaced by a Congress government. Uttarakhand has had a BJP government for a long time (since 2017), but the eggs were introduced during the Congress rule (in 2016).” 

“Religion, specifically linked to caste, overrides science and children’s nutritional needs when it comes to government schemes,” said Karpagam. 

Akshaya Patra only provides  ‘sattvik’ food, which primarily does not include meat, fish, eggs, onion and garlic. It is from an Ayurveda-based food grouping system where eating ‘sattvik’ food is believed to make a person feel energetic and enthusiastic.

Karpagam said this grouping is anti-scientific and openly casteist. “Akshay Patra’s position on food criminalises animal source foods such as eggs, fish, meat and poultry and brands it as being responsible for lustful thoughts or criminal activities.”

Karpagam said 2017 mid-day meal guidelines explicitly state that an NGO or any organisation providing mid-day meals “should not discriminate in any manner on the basis of religion, caste, and creed and should not use the programme for propagation of any religious practice”.  

“This clause is turned on its head, and it is made to appear that giving eggs is itself discriminatory,” said Karpagam.

Some of the arguments against the introduction of eggs focus on the principle of uniformity in schools—that not giving the same food to all students will create a divide amongst them. 

Anand from Sakarwadi agreed with this argument. 

“I think all children should be given bananas,” said Anand, “For example, my brother-in-law’s child does not like eggs, so he will eat bananas. So all students should be given the same food, so that there is uniformity.”

As Anand spoke, his wife, 28-year-old Sangeeta Dore, interrupted him.

“But eggs are more nutritious than bananas,” she said. “Why should all the children suffer because a few students don’t want eggs?”

(Shreya Raman is an independent journalist based in Mumbai covering gender, health, labour and public policy.)

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