Hyderabad:Concerns over a shortage of commercial LPG cylinders across parts of the country have raised questions about whether school meal programmes could face disruption if the situation continues. Officials running the PM-Poshan mid-day meal programme in Telangana say kitchens are functioning normally.
Madan Mohan, joint director (services and planning) in the school education department, said the state had been strengthening fuel arrangements for school kitchens.
“In June 2025 only about 11 per cent of the required stock was secured. Now we have reached around 35 per cent, thanks to the efforts of the collector. We hope to achieve the remaining 64% by June 2026,” he said, adding that there is currently no disruption to cooking in schools.
At residential schools, officials note that enough fuel remains in stock to sustain for now.“We are not facing any problem. The shortage is mainly affecting hotels and restaurants that depend on commercial cylinders. In residential schools, we use domestic LPG cylinders, and there is no shortage of those. The government has sufficient stock, so our kitchens are functioning normally,” a residential school official said.
Authorities have also introduced a mandatory 25-day gap between LPG cylinder bookings to prevent panic booking and hoarding.
Telangana’s official mid-day meal portal indicates that 27,909 schools were obligated to provide meals and were doing so in the latest available data. Officials say there has been no disruption in meal preparation so far. Large centralised kitchens serving schools in some districts maintain their own food reserves as a buffer against supply interruptions.
“We are not facing any issue at the moment. Our kitchens have sufficient buffer stock, enough to sustain operations for about 70 days,” a representative of the Akshaya Patra Foundation said.
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