Nutrition gap: Don't reduce India's food security law to a grain handout scheme

livemint.com:

PDS) to almost two-thirds of India’s population. It proved to be a lifeline during the covid pandemic, with the government raising its entitlement from the mandated 5kg per person to 10kg, free of cost. While the quantity hike was rolled down after the pandemic ended, it continues as a free-ration scheme, as against the earlier subsidized price of ₹2 per kg for wheat and ₹3 per kg for rice.

The scheme’s expansion also came with its renaming as the Prime Minister Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY). As part of his election campaign, earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an extension of the scheme for another five years. While the PMGKAY’s renewed lease in a new avataar may be justified, given spiralling food prices, particularly cereals, the extension and renaming are not just in name, but also in spirit.

The PDS has existed in India for more than five decades and the history of food rations goes back even further, before independence. While it was universal to begin with, it was changed to a targeted scheme after the economic reforms of 1991, with items distributed under the PDS restricted to rice, wheat, kerosene and sugar. However, given problems with targeting, state governments took the lead in PDS reforms, with most states turning the scheme universal again (or quasi-universal).

At the same time, competition among political parties led to gradual reduction in the issue price of subsidized foodgrain. So most states on the eve of the NFSA enactment 10 years ago had prices of rice and wheat at ₹1 per kg or ₹2 per kg. The NFSA was not just a central PDS reform that took its cue from states, it came in the backdrop of India’s slow performance on the nutritional front, despite rapid economic growth, and