A 2013 law that gives a legal right to subsidised food grains to up to 75% of the rural and 50% of the urban population, and provides nutritional support to pregnant women, lactating mothers and children.
Deep-dive lesson:MSP, Procurement, Buffer Stocks and the PDS. This page is a quick reference that connects the term across subjects; read the lesson for the full treatment.
India achieved national self-sufficiency in grain production after the Green Revolution, yet hunger and malnutrition remained widespread. The Public Distribution System (PDS), evolving from wartime rationing in the 1940s, provided subsidised grain, but it was criticised for leakages and poor targeting, especially after the Targeted PDS of 1997 divided households into below and above the poverty line. In 2001, the People's Union for Civil Liberties filed a petition in the Supreme Court, as grain rotted in government warehouses while people starved in drought-affected areas. The Court treated the right to food as part of the right to life under Article 21 and issued many interim orders converting schemes like midday meals into entitlements.
These developments, along with campaigns by the Right to Food movement, led to the National Food Security Act 2013, which moved food security from a welfare scheme to a legal right. The Act built on the PDS but expanded coverage and added maternity and child nutrition entitlements.
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