Indonesia to halt free meals during school break, scale back programme scope

Funding for meals at 76 schools will be redirected to students in remote areas

Indonesia will halt the government's flagship free meals programme for children during school holidays and will also scale back the reach of the scheme, an official said late on Thursday, amid a drive to reduce pressure on the state budget.

Here are some details:

• The programme will stop from Jun 22 to Jul 13, said Agustina Arumsari, deputy head of the National Nutrition Agency, adding it will also be paused in school holidays in the future. Meals had been distributed during the school break last year.
• The agency will stop funding meals for around 39,000 students in 76 schools in areas judged to have the economic capacity to meet nutritional needs, and shift the capacity to students in remote areas, she said.
• She said the moves were part of a reorganisation and efficiency drive. An improvement in governance and oversight was promised after the arrest of its former head early this month on allegations of corruption linked to the programme.
• The budget allocation for the programme this year was earlier cut to 268 trillion rupiah ($15.1 billion) from 335 trillion rupiah.
• The agency plans to propose reducing spending next year from an initial plan of 270 trillion rupiah.
• "We think the figure is too big," Arumsari said. "With the budget we have, we can cut back and make it more efficient."
• The agency will also cut incentives to kitchens that are closed during the school holidays, which she said could save around 3.4 trillion rupiah.
• There may be further cuts to the scheme after taking into account social and economic conditions, she said. Kitchens which service a low number of recipients or do not meet the required standards could be closed, Arumsari said.

($1 = 17,700.0000 rupiah)