Two design features are worth noting beyond the food itself. First, the flexibility clause: implementing agencies and NGOs may serve different approved items in different schools on the same day, but every school must still cover all six weekly menu days under the approved rotation. That trades uniformity for operational feasibility while protecting the nutritional floor. Second, the transition period for idli-sambar acknowledges something schemes often ignore — that a menu change is also an equipment, supply-chain and training change. Steaming idli at scale requires kitchen capacity that a school serving rice and dal does not have. The millet substitution fits a wider policy push to bring coarse grains such as jowar and bajra into public nutrition programmes, where they add fibre and micronutrients that polished grains lack.