TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Free meals program gets Rp 171t budget this year: Sri Mulyani
According to the National Nutrition Agency (BGN), which runs the free nutritious meal program, the new injection is expected to cover the cost of the full-scale program, estimated at Rp 25 trillion per month, once it launches in September
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Students return empty food trays on Feb. 18, 2025, after consuming food distributed through the government’s free nutritious meal program at SDN Banjarsari 5 state elementary school in Serang, Banten. (Antara/Angga Budhiyanto)
P
resident Prabowo Subianto’s flagship free nutritious meal program is to receive Rp 171 trillion (US$10.36 billion) this year, according to Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati in her Instagram post on Thursday.
That confirmed a Rp 100 trillion increase of the total budget earmarked for the program this year from previously Rp 71 trillion.
“On top of ensuring that children and vulnerable groups get adequate nutritional intake, the free meals program is also hoped to lessen a family’s economic burden and push the local economy,” Sri Mulyani said.
The extra funding derives from a massive budget cut totaling Rp 250 trillion across ministries, state agencies and regional administrations for reallocating to the free meals program and the new sovereign wealth fund, Daya Anagata Nusantara (Danantara).
As of mid-March, the Finance Ministry had disbursed Rp 710.5 billion, roughly 1 percent of the originally budgeted Rp 71 trillion fund, and provided free meals to some 2 million beneficiaries, primarily schoolchildren, as well as 1,835 pregnant women and 2,613 breastfeeding mothers.
Elementary school students made up almost half that 2 million figure, followed by junior and senior high school students.
Sri Mulyani said that as of March 12, the program had established 726 nutritional fulfillment service units (SPPG), the designation for caterers participating in the program.
