Food Security in India: Issues and Challenges

Abstract

A household is considered food-secure when its occupants get access to the food in time and do not afraid of starvation. The concept of Food security is centered around two sub-concepts; food availability and food title. This study is based on secondary data which have been collected from various sources i.e. books, magazines, Government Publications, news papers and web sites. The main objectives of this study are to study the various Food Schemes in India, to see the various food subsidies, to analyze the various issues of Food Security and to study the various challenges faced by during the implementation of Food Security in India. National Food Security Act 2013 on July 5, 2013 marks a paradigm shift in the approach to food security from welfare to rights based approach. The Act legally entitles up to 75% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population to receive subsidized food grains under Targeted Public Distribution System. India has introduced the largest number of food schemes in the world from 1992 to 2013. Food subsidy is the major part of the Government expenditure which are provided through the Public Distribution System. The progress of India in Global Hunger Index shows only slight improvement with global score of 18.2 in 20222 as compared to 19.1 in 2014. However this GHI score is considered still moderate in 2022. The GHI ranking of India in 2022 is 107 out of 121 countries and has slipped 6 positions from its 101 rank of 2021. The level of hunger in India is still serious. The trend of temporal change in area share of the crops due crop diversification in India revealed that the area under cereals (expressed in percentage of gross cropped area) has been found to be declined from 15.12 in 2007-08 to 12.93 in 2016-17. Similarly, the area under pulses has increased from 12.54 in 2007-08 to 15.38 in 2016-17. The area under food grains has increased from 65.85 in 2007-08 to 66.84 in 2016-17. There is a need to prioritize the preferential crops that suit well under each agro-climatic region of the country so that higher net returns can be achieved by the farming community through crop diversification.