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Government defends slashing free meal budget for first year
The President has said that a pilot program based on a per meal cost of Rp 10,000, around two-thirds the initial estimate of Rp 15,000, showed that the reduced budget could still provide quality meals during the first year of his flagship program.
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Fueling up: Students eat free meals on Nov. 12, 2024 during a school lunch program organized by the naval command in Makassar, South Sulawesi.
(Antara/Arnas Padda)
T
he government has defended its decision to cut the budget for President Prabowo Subianto's flagship free nutritious meal program, saying that a lower price point would still allow authorities to provide quality meals for students and pregnant women.
President Prabowo announced at a press conference on Friday that the government had set a per meal budget of Rp 10,000 (63 US cents) for the program, lower than his initial estimate of Rp 15,000.
The announcement has sparked widespread concern over whether the government can realize the program’s ambitious aim to provide free nutritious meals to some 82.9 million schoolchildren, teachers, pregnant women and babies.
Presidential Communications Office head Hasan Nasbi said the government had successfully piloted the free meals program across Java in recent months based on the reduced budget of Rp 10,000 per meal.
“With that price, we can provide meals of around 600 to 700 calories per serving for students," Hasan said on Saturday, as quoted by Antara.
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Coordinating Social Empowerment Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said on the same day that authorities would allocate more funding in successive years after maintaining the Rp 10,000 per meal budget during the first year of the program.
