Start With Attendance
Every calculation begins with the number of children present and fed, recorded by class group. Suppose on a given day a school has 20 Balvatika children, 100 primary children and 80 upper primary children present. These are the only numbers we need to begin.
Step 1: Total Rice
Balvatika and primary children get 100 grams of rice each; upper primary get 150 grams. So Balvatika contributes 20 × 100 = 2,000 grams, primary contributes 100 × 100 = 10,000 grams, and upper primary contributes 80 × 150 = 12,000 grams. Adding these gives 24,000 grams, or 24 kilograms of rice for the day.
Step 2: Cooking Cost
Using Odisha's effective per-child amounts of about ₹11.15 for Balvatika and primary and ₹14.74 for upper primary, the cooking cost works out as follows. Balvatika and primary together are 120 children × ₹11.15 = ₹1,338. Upper primary is 80 children × ₹14.74 = ₹1,179.20. The combined cooking cost for the day is about ₹2,517.20.
Step 3: Split Across Ingredients
That cooking cost is then distributed across the ingredients shown for the weekday — rice (free), dal, any soya, vegetables, oil, salt and condiments, and fuel — with the vegetable share adjusted so that each child's total matches the statutory per-child figure exactly. On an egg or laddoo day, the egg or laddoo cost is part of this total.
Step 4: Add the Day's Supplement
If the weekday menu includes an egg or a nutrition laddoo, its per-child cost is already built into the per-child total above. The key is to include it only on the days it is actually served, which depends on the weekday.
Step 5: The Grand Total
Adding the cooking cost across all groups gives the grand total cooking cost for the day — about ₹2,517 in our example — along with the average cost per child and the total rice of 24 kilograms. These three figures are what go into the register and the report.
Let the Tool Do It
Doing this by hand every day for four groups is slow and easy to get wrong. The PM POSHAN MDM Calculator performs all five steps the moment you enter the attendance, applies the correct rate and menu for the date, and gives you an exportable class-wise report. The worked example above is exactly what it automates.