The Ministry of Finance has confirmed that it will increase the budget for the free nutritious meal program (MBG) to Rp171 trillion (US$10,4 billion) upon the request from President  Prabowo Subianto, who wants to expand the scope of beneficiaries of the program.

The budget allocated for the MBG program is only Rp71 trillion, so the government has increased its budget allocation by Rp100 trillion.

Deputy Minister of Finance, Suahasil Nazara, said that the beneficiaries of the MBG program only reached 17.9 million people with the previous budget allocation of Rp71 trillion. Consisting of 15.5 million school children and 2.4 million pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers and toddlers.

"The President has given instructions to maximize the target of beneficiaries in 2025 so that 82.9 million people can receive this MBG program," Suahasil said on Thursday, March 13, 2025.  

He ensured that the government continues to monitor the realization of the MBG budget. He said that the budget had been sought for MBG until Wednesday, March 12, 2025, reaching Rp710.5 billion.

"According to this report, it has reached more than two million beneficiaries whose categories of recipients can be seen as elementary school children, junior high school students, equivalents from Islamic boarding schools, special needs schools, as well as pregnant women, toddlers, and breastfeeding mothers," Suahasil said.

According to him, currently there are 726 nutritional fulfillment service units (SPPG) that have been operating. Suahasil said that the number of SPPGs will continue to increase from time to time.

"So that later SPPG can reach all 82.9 million target recipients of free nutritious food," he said. 

Prabowo is currently giving the green light regarding the plan to increase the budget for the MBG program this year. The additional budget is to accelerate the distribution of MBG packages to 82.9 million recipients by the end of December 2025.

Head of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN), Dadan Hindayana, said that the disbursement of additional MBG budget funds is still awaiting the readiness of the infrastructure and human resources who will be on duty at SPPG.