THE FOOD SECURITY ACT- AN INITIATIVE TO AVERT MALNUTRITION

Food security refers to household’s physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that fulfills the dietary needs and food preferences of that household for living an active and healthy life. It includes at a minimum

• Ready availability of nutritious and safe foods.
• An assured ability to aquire food in socially acceptable ways.

Definition of food security by WHO.

It defines food security with three ingredients:-

• Food availability-: it is, having available sufficient quantities of food in homogenous  way.
• Food access-:it is, having sufficient resources both economic and physical to obtain nutritious diet.
• Food use-: It is the appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition, care, water and sanitation.

The fourth ingredient of stability of these three ingredient has been added up by FAO.

Ensuring the food security continues to be a challenging issue of vital importance in countries like India

The National Food Security Act 2013

One of the major initiatives towards providing the food security to the people of the country, government’s most ambitious bill recently passed in Parliament on 10th sep, 2013.

Objective:

“To provide for food and nutritional security in human life cycle approach by ensuring adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices to people to live a life of dignity and for matters connected therewith.”

The act enshrines freedom of right to food and nutrition.

Salient features of the Act-:

• The act promises to cover 67% of population which covers 75% rural populations and 50% urban population
• The benefeciaries are to be able to purchase 5 kg of food grains per person per month through Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) at the following prices

Rice at Rs 3/kg, Wheat at Rs 2/kg, Coarse grains(millets) at Rs 1/kg

• In case of any unavailability of entitled quantities of food grains, the eligible beneficiaries to receive Food Security Allowances from respective state government.
• Special focus on nutritional support to Women and Children,Pregnant women and Lactating mothers by ensuring nutritious meals as per requirement along with maternity benefit of not less than Rs 6000.
• Eldest women not less than 18 yrs of age shall be the head of the household for the purpose of issue of ration cards thus promotes women empowerment.
• Special focus on women, children and other destitutes living in starvation.

Challenges on food security implementation:

• Reforms in Targeted Public Distribution System: TPDS in our country needs reform such as improvement in application of information and communication technology, Unique identification “AADHAAR” should be used properly to identify targeted beneficiaries to ensure transparency.
• The working network of PDS in states like kerela, Tamil Nadu and Chattisgarh is of great example to learn from as PDS working in these states are most effective. In states of Kerela and Tamil Nadu 95% of the population is presently covered  by the PDS whereas in Chattisgarh, certain and simple exclusion from the population has made the proper identification of targeted beneficiaries possible with minimum errors of inclusion or exclusion. Same approach should be adopted by the other states too.
• Availability of Resources: The implementation of Food Security Act will require resources in cash and kind. It follows then that fiscal allocations will have to rise if the Act to be implemented properly.
• The Economic Survey of India 2013 states that the food subsidy bill is”putting huge stress on fiscal side” which has rarely exceeded 1% of the GDP over three decades as defined by GOI’s budget. Therefore 1 or 2% of GDP is not a high cost to incur to end malnutrition.
• Promotion of sustainable agriculture: Provisions have to be made in terms of production of rice, wheat and other cereals. Adequate investment will have to be made in enhancing agricultural production including in research and extension with special attention on coarse cereals like Sorghum and millets which have been termed as nutri-cereals by M.S. swaminathan.
• Strengthening the local Authorities : It is necessary to meet the obligation of the Food Security Act and the role of gram sabha is very crucial in this regard.
• The 12th five year Plan has also taken steps to identify beneficiaries of various schemes specific to each scheme. The Social And Economic Caste Census (SECC) is an integral part of this objective. It has also built provisions of authentication and validation by the participation of Gram Sabha which is likely to reduce errors of inclusion and exclusion.
• In addition nutritional poverty can be identified from the results of National Family Health Survey (NFHS). But unless there is political commitment backed by financial resources, the Food Security will not lead to major changes in existing Food Insecurity in the country.
• Since the proposed legislation ensures paradigm shift from the welfare approach to rights based aporoach , the definition of priority or targeted population needs to be kept flexible. All these can make this program a flagship programme in the country and can help to avert hunger and malnutrition.