Introduction

India is second largest country in the world in the manner of population. It

is most important considerable plus point of the India, because it involve large
human capital. Even we all Indian are thinking that, we will become super power in
the world. But when we look at the basic problems of the Indian peoples, we know
that- the Indian common man is facing lots of problems today. Recently most of
Indian peoples are struggling with the bread and butter due to the continuously
increasing prices of foodgrains, vegetables, pulses and other cereals. Food security
implies access by all people at all times to sufficient quantities of food to lead an
active and healthy life.” As noted by P.V. Srinivasan, this requires not just adequate
supply of food at the aggregate level but also enough purchasing capacity with the
individual/ household to demand adequate levels of food. As far as the question of
‘adequate supply’ is concerned, it involves two dimensions: 1. the quantitative
dimension ( in the sense that the overall food availability in the economy should
be sufficient to meet the demand), and 2. the qualitative dimension ( in the sense
that the nutritional requirements of the population are properly looked after). As
far as the question of ‘enough purchasing capacity’ is concerned, it involves the
introduction of employment generation programmes so that the income and
purchasing power of the people increases. To tackle the quantitative and
qualitative aspects of the food security problem, the Government of India relied on
the following three food-based safety nets: (1) Public Distribution System (PDS) (2)
Integrated child Development Services (ICDS) and (3) Mid-day meals
programme(MDM). As far as the issue of providing purchasing power to the people
is concerned, various employment programmes have been introduced from time
to time. Even amongst these, PDS has been the focus of most of the attention and
debate over the years.

What is food security?

Food security means availability, accessibility and affordability of food to all people
at all times. The poor households are more vulnerable to food insecurity whenever there is
a problem of production or distribution of food crops. Food security depends on the Public
Distribution System (PDS), Government vigilance and action at times when this security is
threatened.
Food is as essential for living as air is for breathing. But food security means
something more than getting two square meals. Food security has following dimensions
(a) availability of food means food production within the country, food imports and the
previous years stock stored in government granaries. (b) accessibility means food is within
reach of every person. (c) affordability implies that an individual has enough money to buy
sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet one's dietary needs. Thus, food security is
ensured in a country only if (1) enough food is available for all the persons (2) all persons
have the capacity to buy food of acceptable quality and (3) there is no barrier on access to
food.

Why food security?

The poorest section of the society might be food insecure most of the times while
persons above the poverty line might also be food insecure when the country faces a
national disaster/calamity like earthquake, drought, flood, tsunami, widespread failure of
crops causing famine, etc.

How is food security affected during a calamity?

Due to a natural calamity, say drought, total production of foodgrains decreases. It
creates a shortage of food in the affected areas. Due to shortage of food, the prices go up.
At the high prices, some people cannot afford to buy food. If such calamity happens in a
very wide spread area or is stretched over a longer time period, it may cause a situation of
starvation. A massive starvation might take a turn of famine.

A Famine is characterised by wide spread deaths due to starvation and epidemics

caused by forced use of contaminated water or decaying food and loss of body resistance due
to weakening from starvation. The most devastating famine that occurred in India was the
FAMINE OF BENGAL in 1943. This famine killed thirty lakh people in the province of
Bengal.

Who are food-insecure?

Although a large section of people suffer from food and nutrition insecurity in
India, the worst affected groups are landless people with little or no land to depend upon,
traditional artisans, providers of traditional services, petty self-employed workers and
destitutes including beggars. In the urban areas, the food insecure families are those whose
working members are generally employed in ill-paid occupations and casual labour
market. These workers are largely engaged in seasonal activities and are paid very low
wages that just ensure bare survival. The social composition along with the inability to buy
food also plays a role in food insecurity. The SCs, STs and some sections of the OBCs (lower
castes among them) who have either poor land-base or very low land productivity are
prone to food insecurity. The people affected by natural disasters, who have to migrate to
other areas in search of work, are also among the most food insecure people. A high
incidence of malnutrition prevails among women. This is a matter of serious concern as it
puts even the unborn baby at the risk of malnutrition. A large proportion of pregnant
and nursing mothers and children under the age of 5 years constitute an important
segment of the food insecure population. The food insecure people are disproportionately
large in some regions of the country, such as economically backward states with high
incidence of poverty, tribal and remote areas, regions more prone to natural disasters etc.
In fact, the states of Uttar Pradesh (eastern and south-eastern parts), Bihar, Jharkhand,
Orissa, West Bengal, Chattisgarh, parts of Madhya Pradesh and Maharasthra account for
largest number of food insecure people in the country. Hunger is another aspect indicating
food insecurity. Hunger is not just an expression of poverty, it brings about poverty. The
attainment of food security therefore involves eliminating current hunger and reducing
the risks of future hunger. Hunger has chronic and seasonal dimensions. Chronic hunger is
a consequence of diets persistently inadequate in terms of quantity and/or 46 Economics
quality. Poor people suffer from chronic hunger because of their very low income and in
turn inability to buy food even for survival. Seasonal hunger is related to cycles of food
growing and harvesting. This is prevalent in rural areas because of the seasonal nature of
agricultural activities and in urban areas because of the casual labour, e.g., there is less
work for casual construction labour during the rainy season. This type of hunger exists
when a person is unable to get work for the entire year.

What Is Expected In Food Security?

Food security happens when all people at all times have access to enough food that
should affordable, safe and healthy, culturally acceptable , meets specific dietary needs,
obtained in a dignified manner and produced in ways that are environmentally sound. The
World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing "when all people at all times
have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life".
Commonly, the concept of food security is defined as including both physical and economic
access to food that meets people's dietary needs as well as their food preferences. But food
security is a complex sustainable development issue, linked to health through
malnutrition, but also to sustainable economic development, environment, and trade.
There is a great deal of debate around food security. If we fail to maintain above there has
been food insecurity. Food insecurity exists when all people, at all times, do not have
physical and economic access to the sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their
dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

India is aiming at Self-sufficiency in Foodgrains since Independence.

After independence, Indian policy makers adopted all measures to achieve

selfsufficiency in food grains. India adopted a new strategy in agriculture, which resulted
in the ‘Green Revolution’ especially in the production of wheat and rice. Indira Gandhi,
the then Prime Minister of India, officially recorded the impressive strides of the Green
revolution in agriculture by releasing a special stamp entitled ‘Wheat Revolution’ in July
1968. The success of wheat was later replicated in rice. The increase in foodgrains was,
however, disproportionate. The highest rate of growth was achieved in Punjab and
Haryana, where foodgrains production jumped from 7.23 million tonnes in 1964–65 to
reach an all-time high of 30.33 million tonnes in 1995–96. Production in Maharashtra,
Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa and the northeastern states continued to stagger. Tamil
Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, on the other hand, recorded significant increases in rice yield.

Food Security in India

National Food Security Act:

Available from 4 June, 2009 onwards by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food
and Public Distribution. Its objective is to Ensuring food security to the Below Poverty Line
(BPL) people in urban & rural areas. Under the new Act, the government would provide
251 lakh tons of food grains for BPL categories, with subsidy amounting to Rs.40,380 crore.
The scheme proposes to provide BPL families with 25kgs of grain per month at Rs.
3 per kg. The stocks of foodgrains (wheat and rice) in the central pool, as on June 1, 2009
were 204.03 lakh tons of rice and 331.22 lakh tons of wheat."The estimated annual
requirement of foodgrains is about 446 lakh tons under TPDS and about 50 lakh tons under
other welfare schemes," Pawar added.
Looking at the popularity of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
(NREGS), which helped the Congress to win the 2009 Parliamentary elections, the newly
constituted Government has thought of bringing the Food Security Act * President
Pratibha Patil on June 4, 2009 said that a National Food Security Act would be formulated
whereby each below poverty line (BPL) family would be entitled by law to get 25 kg of rice
or wheat per month at Rs 3/- per kg, a promise made by the Congress before general
elections 2009. Many would agree that the proposal for a Food Security Bill has come at
the right point of time when the world has already witnessed food crisis in 2008 that
pushed millions of people to the brink of poverty and under nutrition.

Key Features for the new act

Below Poverty Line (BPL) households: All BPL households shall be entitled to 35 kg of
foodgrain each month, at Rs 3/kg for rice and Rs 2/kg for wheat under the Public
Distribution System. Each nuclear family shall be treated as a separate household. A
new methodology for the BPL Census is being proposed, based on simple, transparent
and verifiable criteria. For instance, in rural areas any household that meets any two
simple inclusion criteria (such as landlessness and being SC/ST) shall be entitled to a
BPL Card. Households meeting any of six “exclusion criteria” will not be entitled to
 BPL cards. Extensive transparency safeguards will also be introduced in the Public
Distribution System (PDS)
The proposed Act demands for continuation of existing food related schemes such as:
Integrated Child Development Services, Mid-Day Meal Scheme, Public Distribution
System, Antyodaya, National Maternity Benefit Scheme/ Janani Suraksha Yojana,
National Social Assistance Programme, including Indira Gandhi National Old Age
Pension Scheme, Indira Gandhi National Widow Pension Scheme and Indira Gandhi
National Disability Pension Scheme, National Family Benefit Scheme, and Rajiv Gandhi
National Crèche Scheme. All the provisions in various such schemes have been
elaborately discussed in the proposed Act

The proposed Act has asked for severe penalties against individuals and organizations/
companies who are held responsible for violation of food safety norms and standards
that affects the public. It has demanded for severe punishment to those who push for
baby food instead of breast milk

The draft Right to Food Act has safeguards against encroachments by corporate lobbies
and private contractors in food and nutrition related schemes

Apprehensions about the new National Food SecurityAct:

* If made into a law, the draft Food Security Bill would reduce the allocation for a
below poverty line (BPL) household (e.g. in the case of Antodaya Anna Yojana) from 35 kg
of rice/ wheat per month to 25 kg of rice/ wheat per month. This would appear
contradictory to many who expected the Bill to be a benign effort of the UPA-II (2009-****)
to ensure food security.

* Instead of better implementation of the already existing schemes such as the

Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), Antodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), Integrated
Child Development Scheme (ICDS), Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) etc., the Food Security
law might make things unduly worse and unnecessarily complicated. A cynical question
here would be: Is the Food Security Bill going to replace all such food related schemes that
existed before its enactment?

* If the Bill is about ensuring food security, how can it leave those who may not fall
below the poverty line but are already exposed to food insecurity? The Rome Declaration
(1996) made during the World Food Summit states that ‘food security is achieved when all
people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food
to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active life’. Food security is about
nutrition security too. If that is the case, the Food Security Bill has to rethink about the
quality of food grains supplied and distributed. The Food Security Bill must also aim at
providing fortified food grains along with pulses, edible oils, salt and essential spices. A
balanced diet would ensure both food and nutrition security. The basket of commodities,
which would be available to the consumers, should reflect local tastes and preferences and
must include locally grown cereals and legumes.

* If targeting of BPL households is done under the Food Security Bill, then that would
lead to inclusion (including the non-poor) and exclusion (excluding the poor) errors. It
would be wiser to go for universalization (rather than targeting) as was recommended by
the Committee on Long Term Grain Policy under the chairmanship of Prof. Abhijit Sen
(200002).

* Is India ready to rely exclusively upon biotechnology and genetic engineering for
increasing its agricultural production so as to ensure food security for all? Much of debates
have already taken place on the usefulness and pitfalls of GMOs.
* The World Development Report 2008-Agriculture for Development, which has
been brought out by the World Bank mentions that India presently faces the problem of
depleting ground water level that makes agriculture unsustainable and poses risk to
environment. If rice is one of the food grains that is going to be supplied when the Food
Security Act comes into being, then more and more farmers would go for cultivation of rice
by looking at the price incentives offered by the Government. In the Punjab region,
overexploitation of groundwater takes place thanks to the huge subsidies given on
electricity. Moreover, minimum support prices (MSP) for rice increase the financial
attractiveness of rice relative to less water-intensive crops, which makes depletion of
ground water table more obvious.

* There are apprehensions that sustainability of Food Security law would be at peril
if India faces lower agricultural production due to poor harvest, drought etc. in the future.
Is India ready to rely upon food imports and food aid to ensure right to food at all cost? At
present, the country has been facing shortage in south-west monsoon rainfall that might
affect agricultural production and prices of commodities.

Since the advent of the Green revolution in the early-’70s, the country has avoided
famine even during adverse weather conditions. India has become self-sufficient in
foodgrains during the last thirty years because of a variety of crops grown all over the
country. The availability of foodgrains (even in adverse weather conditions or otherwise)
at the country level has further been ensured with a carefully designed food security
system by the government. This system has two components: (a) buffer stock and (b)
public distribution system.

The nature of the problem

The Quantitative Aspect:

Because of chronic food shortages that the country faced in the years following
Independence, the focus of food policy was to achieve self sufficiency. The period after the
Third Plan has been marked by rapid strides in foodgrains production. This has enabled
the economy to overcome the problems of foodgrains shortages and build up large stocks
of foodgrains to counter any scarcity conditions. In fact, as noted by R. Radhakrishna, India
achieved self-sufficiency in foodgrains in the 1970s and has sustained it since then. It
improved its capacity to cope with year-to-year fluctuations in food production by building
up large buffer stocks through the agency of FCI ( Food Corporation of India) and supplying
these stocks to the people through the PDS. During some of the recent years, the buffer
stocks considerably exceeded the minimum norms causing the problem of ‘excess stocks’.
In July 2002, the actual stocks of foodgrains were as high as 63.0 million tons ( the highest
level attained) while the buffer stock norm was 24.3 million tons. As a result, ‘excess stocks’
were as much as 38.7 million tons. However, stocks have subsequently declined. In fact,
stocks of foodgrains stood at 17.4 million tons on January 1, 2007, lower than not only the
stock of 18.8 million tons on January 1, 2006 but also the buffer stock norm of 20 million
tones. The main reason for the decline in stocks was the lower stock of wheat. However,
the stock of foodgrains rose to 19.2 million tons on January 1, 2008 which is the close to
the buffer stock norm of 20 million tones and is considered by Economic Survey, 2007-08,
as ‘adequate for meeting the requirement under TPDS and welfare schemes during the
current financial year.
However, there are some issues of concern. Analysts point out that while
population growth and shift in food habits away from coarse grains with the rise in
incomes, will push up the consumption of wheat considerably in years to come ( to about
82 millions tons in 2009-10 and 90 million tons in 2014-15), the production is not likely
to rise as neither area under wheat is likely to increase nor are any further increases in
productivity in evidence ( in fact, wheat productivity after touching the level of 2,762 kgs
per hectare in 2001-02 had tended to decline and was only 2,671 kgs per hectare in 2006-
07). As far as rice is concerned, its production in recent years has been more than
consumption except 2002-03. however, rice output has not grown strongly with yields
stagnating at around 2,000 kgs per hectare since the late 1990s. even area under rice has
tended to fall ( it was 45.2 million hectares in 1999-2000 and 43.6 million hectares in 2006-
07). Accordingly, many observers believe that rice production is also beginning to plateau.
As far as vegetable oils and pulses are concerned. India already imports their large
quantities. For instance, vegetable oil imports were 49.85 per cent (i.e. half) of total
consumption in 2004-05 while pulses imports were 8.83 per cent of total consumption in
that year.

The qualitative aspect: Evben more worrisome is the qualtitative aspect of the
problem as the following facts clearly bring out.
1. According to the Global Hunger Index, 2007, India ranks an abysmal 96 in a group
of 119 developing countries. Only Bangladesh has worse levels of hunger than
India in South Asia. Even Nepal is for notches higher than India at number 92 and
Pakistan 8 points higher at number 88.
2. according to the World Food programme, nearly 50 per cent of the world hungry
lives in India.
3. about 35 per cent of India’s population – over 350 million is food – insecure,
consuming less than 80 per cent of the minimum energy requirement.
4. nearly 9 out of 10 pregnant women between 15 and 49 years are malnourished
and anemic.
5. anemia in pregnant women causes 20 per cent of the infant mortality.
6. 46 per cent of children under 5 were malnourished in 2006. the rate has improved
by just one per cent in a decade but still worse least developed countries were the
figure is 35 per cent.
7. of the 9.7 million total deaths of children under five worldwide, 2.1 million deaths
were in India in 2006. In other words India contributed 21.6 per cent of total deaths
in the world below five – years group.
8. malnutrition accounts for 50 per cent of under five deaths.
9. of the 19 million infants with low birth weight in the developing world, 8.3 million
come from India, were under weight prevalence rate is 43 per cent.
10. about one-third of under weight children under five live in India ( 54.6 million out
of 156 million): Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, jharkhand, Gujrat, Orissa, Chattisgarh,
meghalaya and Uttar Pradesh are worst offenders.
11. percentage of children suffering from anemia is 77. in other words, three out of
four children in India are anaemic.
12. percentage of stunted children is 37. i.e., one out of three children has stunted
growth.
13. percentage of children not fully immunized is 51.

Problems in PDS & Food Security for the poor

• Virtual exclusion of states like Bihar & Uttarpradesh from PDS network.
• In states like Kerala & Andhra Pradesh PDS expenditure was higher but the poor
purchased less while the non-poor purchased more. The PDS scheme was
regressive in this case.
• In other states the coverage was low. The monthly per capita purchase was 0.9kg
in rural areas & 1.3kg in urban areas.
• The monthly purchase from PDS was uniformly lower across all states. It was no
guarantee that the very poor are better served.
• Thus PDS remained an expensive and largely untargeted programme.
GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE ON FOOD

Year Expenditure at current % of total Govt.

prices (Rs. crores) expenditure
1980-81 650 2.9

1990-91 2,450 2.3

2000-01 12,120 3.6

2004-05 27,798 2.5

2005-06 23,077 1.3

2006-07 24,014 1.0

What is the Public Distribution System?

Public Distribution System

The basic objective of the public distribution system in India is to provide essential
consumer goods at cheap and subsidized prices to the consumer so as to insulate them
from the impact of rising prices of these commodities and maintain the minimum
nutritional status of our population.
It acts as a price support programme for the consumer during the periods of
shortage of the 1960s. Thus, it acted as an instrument of price stabilization and became
countervailing force against private traders who were interested to exploit the situation of
scarcity to acquire more and more profits. The basic aim was to provide essential
commodities such as rice, wheat, sugar, edible oil, soft coke and kerosene at subsidized
prices.
It acquired the status of a welfare programme. An effort was made to extend
subsidized foodgrains in 1985 in all the tribal blocks covering about 57 million persons.
With a network of more than 4.62 lakh fair prices shops distributing commodities worth
Rs. 30,000 crores annually to about 160 million families, the PDS in India was the largest
distribution network of its kind in the world.
The food subsidy component of the Central Government is given in table 2. it may
be noted that there has been a continuous increased in PDS expenditure, which rose from
Rs. 650 crores in 1980-81 to Rs. 2,450 crorres in 1990-91. There was a big jump in
expenditure during the period. As a proportion of Central Government expenditure , it was
in the range of 2.9 to 3.2 per cent during 1980s and 1990s. Since 1997-98 PDS expenditure
has been sooting up from Rs. 7,500 crores to Rs. 12,120 crorres in 2003-04. Food subsidies
as percentage of total government expenditure went up sharply form 2.9 per cent in 1980-
81 to 5.2 per cent in 2003-04.

Relative Share of Different Items in PDS Sales

Rice, wheat, sugar, edible oil, soft coke and kerosene are sold through PDS outlets.
Of these four items, viz, rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene account for 86 per cent of total
PDS sales. Sugar alone accounts for 35 per cent, followed by rice (27%), wheat (10%) and
kerosene (15%). Coarse cereals (bajra, jowar and other coarse grains), which are largely
consumed by the poor accounts for less than one per cent of total PDS sales. The share of
pulses, tha main source of protein for the poor, is less than 0.2 percent.

PDS impact on Poverty

Radhakrishna report has also studied the decline in poverty as a result of PDS
subsidies. Taking India as a whole, the impact of all consumer subsidies on poverty was
moderate; subsidies were estimated to have reduced poverty by 1.6 percentage points in
rural areas and 1.7 percentage points in urban areas. About 12 million persons may have
moved out of poverty in 1986-87 due to income transfers from PDS. As the absolute
number of poor in India was put at 274 million in 1986-87, these numbers are small, rather
insignificant.
The poor impact of the scheme in poor states also underlines the need for
strengthening PDS in these states. As long as the development process is not able to reduce
poverty continuance of the PDS in poor states stands justified. Rather, the need of the hour
is to encourage proper targeting to achieve better results to pursue PDS.

Current Status of Public Distribution System

Public Distribution System (PDS) is the most important step taken by the
Government of India (GoI) towards ensuring food security. In the beginning the coverage
of PDS was universal with no discrimination between the poor and non-poor. Over the
years, the policy related to PDS has been revised to make it more efficient and targeted. In
1992, Revamped Public Distribution System (RPDS) was introduced in 1,700 blocks in the
country. The target was to provide the benefits of PDS to remote and backward areas. From
June 1997, in a renewed attempt, Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) was
introduced to adopt the principle of targeting the ‘poor in all areas’. It was for the first time
that a differential price policy was adopted for poor and non-poor. Further, in 2000, two
special schemes were launched viz., Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and the Annapurna
Scheme (APS) with special target groups of ‘poorest of the poor’ and ‘indigent senior
citizens’, respectively. The functioning of these two schemes was linked with the existing
network of the PDS.

The PDS has proved to be the most effective instrument of government policy over
the years in stabilising prices and making food available to consumers at affordable prices.
It has been instrumental in averting widespread hunger and famine by supplying food
from surplus regions of the country to the deficit ones. In addition, the prices have been
under revision in favour of poor households in general. The system, including the
minimum support price and procurement has contributed to an increase in food grain
production and provided income security to farmers in certain regions.

Programmes for Food Security in India: India has the largest food schemes in the World.

Entitlement Feeding Programmes

With a view to enhancing enrollment, retention and attendance and simultaneously
improving nutritional levels among children, the National Programme of Nutritional
Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) was launched as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme
on 15th August 1995, initially in 2408 blocks in the country. By the year 1997-98 the
NPNSPE was introduced in all blocks of the country. It was further extended in 2002 to
cover not only children in classes I-V of government, government aided and local body
schools, but also children studying in EGS and AIE centres. Central Assistance under the
scheme consisted of free supply of food grains @ 100 grams per child per school day, and
subsidy for transportation of food grains up to a maximum of Rs 50 per quintal. In
September 2004 the scheme was revised to provide cooked mid day meal with 300 calories
and 8-12 grams of protein to all children studying in classes I-V in Government and aided
schools and EGS/AIE centers. In addition to free supply of food grains, the revised scheme
provided Central Assistance for (a) Cooking cost @ Re 1 per child per school day, (b)
Transport subsidy was raised from the earlier maximum of Rs 50 per quintal to Rs. 100
per quintal for special category states, and Rs 75 per quintal for other states, (c)
Management, monitoring and evaluation costs @ 2% of the cost of food grains, transport
subsidy and cooking assistance, (d) Provision of mid day meal during summer vacation in
drought affected areas. 12 crore (120 million) children are so far covered under the
Midday Meal Scheme, which is the largest school lunch programme in the world. Allocation
for this programme has been enhanced from Rs 3010 crore to Rs 4813 crore (Rs 48
billion1.2 billion) in 2006-2007.

National Food for Work Programme:

National Food for Work Programme was launched on November 14, 2004 in 150 most
backward districts of the country with the objective of intensifying the generation of
supplementary wage employment. The programme is open to all rural poor who are in
need of wage employment and desire to do manual unskilled work. It is implemented as a
100 per cent centrally sponsored scheme and the foodgrains are provided to States free of
cost. The Collector is the nodal officer at the district level and has the overall responsibility
of planning, implementation, coordination, monitoring and supervision. For 2004–05, Rs
2,020 crore have been allocated for the programme in addition to 20 lakh tonnes of
foodgrains.

Food Subsidy Programmes

Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY): AAY was launched in December 2000. Under the scheme
one crore of the poorest among the BPL families covered under the targeted public
distribution system were identified. Poor families were identified by the respective state
rural development departments through a Below Poverty Line (BPL) survey. Twenty five
kilograms of foodgrains were made available to each eligible family at a highly subsidised+
rate of Rs 2 per kg for wheat and Rs 3 per kg for rice. This quantity has been enhanced from
25 to 35 kgs with effect from April 2002. The scheme has been further expanded twice by
additional 50 lakh BPL families in June 2003 and in August 2004. With this increase, 2 crore
families have been covered under the AAY.

Annapurna (10 kgs of free food grain for destitute poor): The Annapurna scheme aims
at providing food security to meet the requirement of those Senior Citizens who through
eligible have remained uncovered under the National Old Age Pension Scheme (NOAPS).
Under the Annapurna Scheme, 10 Kg. of food grains per month are to be provided 'free of
cost' to the Beneficiary. The number of persons to be benefited from the Scheme will, in
the first instance, be 20% of the persons eligible to receive pension under NOAPS in
States/Union Territories.

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)

ICDS launched in 1975 is a centrally sponsored scheme implemented by the
ministry of Human Resource Development. The central government is responsible for
programme planning and operating costs while state governments are responsible for
programme implementation and providing supplementary nutrition out of their own
resources. It is one of the child intervention programme in the world with a holistic
package of six basic services for children up to six years of age, and for pregnant and
nursing mothers. These services are:
1. Supplementary feeding (ICDS provides to a child food ration for 300
days, containing 300 calories and 12.5 grams protein and to pregnant
and lactating women food ration containing 500 calories and 12-15
grams protein)
2. Immunisation
3. Health Check-ups
4. Referral services
5. Health and nutrition, education to adult women, and
6. Non-formal pre school education to 3-6 years old.

The programme is implemented through a chain of projects, each of which is

located at a community block covering around one lac population in rural and urban areas
and 35,000 population in tribal areas. The ICDS project located at community block targets
to provide food supplement to 40% of 17,000 children aged under six years and 40% of
the pregnant and lactating women. ICDS is being implemented through one platform, i.e.,
Anganwari centre or child Care centres. The staff includes CDPO (Chief Development
Project Officer), Supervisors, Anganwari workers and helpers.
Funds for ICDS:- the expenditure for running ICDS is currently made for three broad
sources:
1. Funds provided by the Central Government under general ICDS, used to meet
expenses on account of infrastructure, salaries of ICDS staff, training, basic medical
equipment, pre-school learning kit etc.
2. Funds allocated by state government under their respective budgets to provide
supplementary nutrition.
3. Funds provided under the Pradhan mantri Gramodaya Yojana (PMGY) as
additional central assistance, technically to be used to provide monthly take home
rations (THR). To children from 0-3 years age group living below the poverty line
and need of additional supplementation.
Expansion of ICDS: - Starting with a modest 33 blocks/ projects, ICDS has gradually
expended to 6,118 projects of which 5,659 projects with 7, 48,229 Anganwari centres were
operational by March 31, 2006. The coverage of ICDS as expended steadily over the years
in March 1992 it had 1.7 crore beneficiaries. This number rose to 2.8 crore in June 1999.
At the end of December 2007, 5,959 ICDS projects and 9,32,000 Anganwadis and mini
Anganwari centres were functional. The beneficiaries count increased to 6.29 crore
children and 1.32 crore pregnant mothers.

Mid-day meals scheme - MDMS (All Primary School children)

The national programme of nutritional support to primary education, commonly

known as the Mid-day Meal (MDM) scheme launched in 1995, is a nation wide central
scheme intended to improve the enrollment and regular attendance and reduce dropout
in schools. It is also intended to improve the nutritional status of the primary school
children. MDM is the largest school nutritional programme in the world and is meant to
provide at least 450 calories and 12 grams of protein to 12 crore children in over 9.5 lac
primary schools (government, government aided and local body schools). The scheme is
being implemented in all states and union territories. In order to improve the quality of
meal, the scheme was last revised in June,2006. The cooking cost norm has been fixed at
Rs. 2 per child per school day. Recognizing the need for appropriate infrastructure,
assistance for construction of 94,500 kitchen cum stores was sanctioned for the first time
to states in 2006-07 (budget estimates). Similarly, assistance to states has been provided
at the rate of 5,000 per school to procure/ repair kitchen devices. The allocation for MDM
scheme was Rs. 5,348 crore in 2006-07. This allocation was raised to Rs. 7,324 crore in the
union budget for 2007-08.
 The performance of mid-day meal scheme has varied across states. In Uttar
Pradesh, because of powerful food mafias and corrupt officials, there has been very poor
implementation. However, in Tamilnadu it has proved to be quite a successful stuff
introduced way-back in 1982, the scheme-called free noon meal scheme (FNMS) –
currently covers 17.26 lac children between the ages of 6 months and 5 year. Currently,
the scheme is being implemented in 41,344 schools covering 58.76 lac children up to the
tenth grade. The FNMS has helped improve the nutritional status of children considerably;
from 41.40 in 1992-93 to 61.45 in 2005-06, and serve malnutrition has been reduced from
0.45% in 1999 to 0.07% in March, 2006. The infant mortality rate has also dropped from
53 per thousand live births in 1998 to 42 in 2003. Under the directions of the Supreme
Court, private sector has also been involved in the scheme in various states. Thousands of
women in Gram Panchayat are cooking and serving hot food to children in their villages in
these states. This has not only helped to feed children with quality meals cooked and
served piping hot during their lunch their lunch break but has also let to women
empowerment.

Critical Appraisal of ICDS and Mid-day Meal Scheme:

Three National Family Health Surveys have been carried out between 1992-
2006.NFHSII(1998-1999) and NFHS-III(2005-2006).
1. The overall impact of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) on malnutrition
was remained very limited due to a meager allocation of resources to this
programme and faulty project design.
2. The programme is unequally distributed between the states. It does not cover the
states like Bihar, U.P., and M.P. which are having high degree of malnutrition
properly.
3. Though the programme is meant to be a package of ‘integrated services’ including
nutrition services, nutrition counseling, micronutrient supplementation and
antenatal care for pregnant women its focus is intended to focus to supplementary
nutrition programme(SNP). Further, the main focus of SNP has been on children in
the age group of 3-6yrs. Younger children have been comparatively neglected if not
excluded.

National Food Security Mission

The growth in food grains production has stagnated during recent past while the
consumption need of the growing population is increasing. To meet the growing
foodgrains demand, National Development council in its 53rd meeting adopted a resolution
to enhance the production of rice, wheat and pulses by 10, 8 and 2 million tons respectively
by 2011. The proposed centrally sponsored scheme ‘National Food Security Mission
(NFSM) is to operationalise the resolution of NDC and enhance the production of rice,
wheat and pulses.

Key features
1. The scheme to be implemented in a mission mode through a farmer centric
approach.
2. All the stakeholders to be actively associated at the District levels for achieving the
set goal.
3. The Scheme aims to target the select districts by making available the improved
technologies to the farmers through a series of planned interventions.
4. A close monitoring mechanism proposed to ensure that interventions reach the
targeted beneficiaries.

Objectives
1. Increasing production of rice, wheat and pulses through area expansion and
productivity enhancement in suitable manner.
 2. Restoring soil fertility and productivity at individual farm level.
3. Enhancing farm level economy (farm profits) to restore confidence of farmers of
targeted districts.

Strategy
1. Expansion of area of pulses and wheat, no expansion of area in rice.
Bridging the yield gap between the potential and the present level of productivity through
– • Acceleration of seed production.
• Integrated Nutrient Management and Integrated Pest Management.
• Promotion of new production technologies like hybrid rice, timely planting of
wheat and promotion of new improved variety of pulses.
• Supply of input ensuring their timely availability.

Components of NFSM
Rice
• Demonstration of improved technology including hybrid and system of rice
intensification (SRI).
• Promotion of mechanical weeders and others farm implements.
• Extension, training and mass media campaign.
• Awards for the best performing district in each state.
Wheat
• Providing subsidy on diesel pump sets and community generators for irrigation.
• Promotion of micronutrient use in deficient areas.
• Assistance for innovative interventions at local level
Pulses
• Increasing for innovative replacement rate to 25%

Flow of Fund
• Fund for the mission programmes to be directly released to the State NFSM agency
after approval by the National Executive Committee.
• State Mission agency would ensure implementation of the programmes, in a time
bound manner and would make available funds to the district level implementing
agency in accordance with their approved programmes.
• Funds would be released in installments based on progress reports.

Monitoring

• The NFSM will be monitored by national, state and district executive committee.
• The project management team would be constituted at district, state and national
level to assist in the monitoring and implementation of the programme.
• Mission director at national and state level will be assisted by project management
team in implementation and monitoring.

A paradigm NFSM - RICE

• Districts covering more than 50,000 hectare area under rice.
• The productivity is less than the state average productivity.
NFSM – WHEAT
• Districts with sizeable area under wheat.
• Districts having irrigation to a great extent.
• The productivity is less than national/ state average.
NFSM – PULSES
• The districts selected based on potential for area expansion through inter-cropping/
follow land.
District level Action plan

• The annual action plan to be prepared by district food security mission executive
committee headed by collector.
• A baseline survey to be conducted by district agency to record current levels of
production.
• The annual action plans for the districts to be based on potential and available
technology.
• State level action plan to be prepared based on district level action plan.
• For selection of beneficiaries Pnachayat Raj institutions to be associated a village
level.

Area of Operation NFSM- RICE – Total States – 12

• Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya

Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tamilnadu, Uttar Pradesh and west Bengal.
• Total identified districts – 133.

NFSM – Wheat: Total States: 9

• Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashta, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar
Pradesh and West Bengal.
• Total identified districts: 138

NFSM – Pulses:Total States:14

• Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh,
Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamilnadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal
• Total identified districts:168

Total States under NFSM: 16

Total identified districts under NFSM: 305

Flaws in food Security System

The PDS in India has been criticized on various counts. The main criticism is as follow;
1. Limited benefit to poor from PDS: - Many empirical studies have shown that the
rural poor have not benefited much from the PDS as their dependence on the open
market has been much higher than on the PDS for most of the commodities. In
study published in 2002, R. Radhakrishna, made the following important
observations as far as access of the poor to PDS is concerned:
• Many empirical studies have shown severe biases in the inter-regional
distributions of the PDS supplies – states with high incidence of poverty
such as Bihar, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh received a lower share.
• The PDS is not functioning at all in the states with high concentration of
the poor, due to lack of the desire initiatives on the part of the state
governments. The prospects of these states in providing safety nets to the
poor on the basis of spending from their own resources would seem to be
bleak since they are facing a severe fiscal crunch. Even the TPDS ( Targeted
Public Distribution System) introduced in 1997, has not made a significant
impact on the access of food since delivery systems in the poorer states are
weak.

2. Regional disparities in PDS benefits: - there are considerable regional

disparities in the distribution of PDS benefits. For example, in 1995, the four
southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Karla and Tamilnadu accounted for
 almost one half (48.7%) of total PDS off take of foodgrains in the country while
their share in all India population below the poverty line in 1993-94 was just
18.4%. as against these, the four northern of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and
Uttar Pradesh ( or BIMARU states) having as much as 47.6 % of all India population
below the poverty line in 1993-94 accounted for just 10.4% of all India off take of
foodgrains from PDS in 1995.
3. The question of urban bias: - Number of economists have pointed out that PDS
remained limited mostly to urban areas for a considerable period of planning
where the coverage of rural areas was very insufficient.
4. The burden of food subsidy: - PDS is highly subsidized in India and this has put a
severe fiscal burden on the government. Subsidy on PDS arises from the differences
between the issue price and the economic cost of the FCI. From Rs. 662 crores in
180-81, food subsidy rose to Rs. 2850 crores in 1991-92 and further to Rs. 23,828
crore in 2006-07.
5. Inefficiencies in the operation of FCI:- the economic cost of FCI foodgrains
operations have been rising on the account of increase in procurements prices and
other costs ( which include procurement incidentals, distribution cost and carrying
cost).
6. PDS results in price increases: - some economists have pointed out that the
operations of the PDS have, in fact, resulted in all round price increase. This is due
to the reason that large procurements of fodgrains every year by the government
actually reduces the net quantity available in the open market.
7. Leakages from PDS: - Another criticism of PDS relates to the problem of leakages
from the system in the form of losses in the transport and storage and diversion to
open market. The major part of the leakage is due to diversion of foodgrains to the
open market because of the widespread prevalence of corrupt practices.

Conclusion
Although, we can say that food security problem in India is not serious if we success
in the proper distribution policy. But problem is that, the government has failed to control
and regulate food market in India. This problem becomes serious due to the unfair trade
practice by private traders doing in drought situation. The problem of hunger is due to
poor economic accessibility. It is result of poor implementation of policy measures. In
developing countries like India having a huge population, scarcity of food is a major socio-
economic problem. In such situation rich become richer and poor become poorer. Thus,
percentage of poor people below poverty line increases who are suffering from
malnutrition. Thus, food security plays a vital role. So that at least all people can access to
basic food requirements.

Bibliography :
1. Public Policy (Art and Craft of Policy Analysis) By R.K Sapru,
2nd Edition
2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org
3. In.one.un.org
4. www.foodsecurityportal.org
5. Mofpi.nic.in
6. https:dfpd.gov.in