Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration has banned the sale, advertisement and free distribution of high-fat, high-salt and high-sugar (HFSS) food within school premises and up to 50 metres beyond the boundary wall. FDA Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe issued the order under Section 30(1) of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, and it covers government, aided, private, residential and hostel-based schools from pre-primary through Class 12, across every board including State Board, CBSE and ICSE.

What changes on the ground

The list of banned items reads like a school tuck-shop menu: chips, carbonated drinks, chocolates, samosas, French fries, cakes, cookies, ice cream and anything made with vanaspati ghee or MSG. Vendors, tuck shops and street stalls within 50 metres of a school boundary now fall under the same restriction as the school canteen itself. Every food business operator serving a school, from the in-house canteen to a nearby cart, must now hold a valid FSSAI licence or registration, and schools have to set up a Food Safety Board with a designated supervisor to oversee compliance. Principals, management and school committees carry responsibility if violations are found on their watch.

What it means for families

For parents, the order shifts responsibility for a child’s daily food environment away from the vada pav stall outside the gate and onto the school administration itself. Canteens are being pushed toward fruits, vegetables, pulses, milk and seasonal foods instead of packaged snacks, and the display-board requirement means parents should be able to see vendor details and nutritional information rather than take a canteen’s offerings on faith. The 50-metre radius also reaches beyond school grounds into the informal food economy that surrounds most Maharashtra schools, where a handcart or a small shop often does more daily business with students than the canteen does.

What to watch next

Neither FDA statement lays out a specific enforcement timeline or a published penalty schedule beyond inspections, and no effective date has been announced. That gap matters because Maharashtra has tightened school food rules before without sustained follow-through, and this order’s success depends on FDA field inspectors actually visiting the thousands of schools and neighbouring vendors it covers rather than settling into a paper directive. Parents and school committees will also be watching how strictly the FSSAI licensing requirement is enforced against small vendors who operate on thin margins just outside school gates.

Sources: Curly Tales, Mumbai Live

This report was compiled and written with AI assistance from publicly reported sources, and reviewed for accuracy.