Do-or-die year in Indonesia for Prabowo’s free meals rollout

FILE PHOTO: Students collecting trays of food supplied by the Indonesian government at an elementary school in Banda Aceh. With a long-term target of reaching around 83 million people, the free meals programme has been allocated Rp 335 trillion this year, equivalent to 8.7 per cent of the total state budget. — AFP

JAKARTA: With a budget nearing one-tenth of this year’s state spending, President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship free nutritious meal programme faces mounting pressure to justify its cost, amid criticism over food safety incidents, weak oversight and competing policy priorities.

Launched on Jan. 6 last year to help address stunting, the programme initially operated just 190 kitchens, known as Nutrition Fulfillment Service Units (SPPG), serving around 570,000 children in selected cities.