One of the best presentation ever.

2. Food security?
 Food security implies access by all people at all times to
sufficient, safe and nutritious food to maintain a healthy and
active life.(world food summit-1996)
 Aspects of food security :
Adequate food supply Enough purchasing capacity
Supply side Demand Side
Quantitative Qualitative Employment generation
programmes

3. 3A’s of Food security :
 Availability
Accessibility
Affordability

4. Food based
safety nets
PDS
ICDS
MDM

5. How the Public Distribution System works:
Farmers or
Producers
States
Fair Price
Shops
F.C.I
(maintains
Buffer
Stocks)
Grains MSP
Allocates Grains
Central Issue Price
C.I.P Distributes
Grains

6. Need of Food Security:
 In quantitative aspect India is self sufficient after Green evolution.
 But in qualitative aspect we have a dismal picture.
 According to GHI 2012 india ranks 65 in a group of 79 developing countries.
 One out of every three malnourished children of the world live in India.
 About 35% of India’s population is food insecure and consuming less than
80% of minimum energy requirements.
 According to world food programme nearly 50% of the world hungry lives in
India.
(source: (Misra and Puri) Indian Economy by p.334)

7. National food security act
 Introduced in the lok sabha on Dec
22,2011 and signed into law on
sept 12,2013.
 With the objective to provide basic
requirements of food to all at cheap
rates as a matter of right.
Mandatory
Coverage in India
Bihar
Rural 75% 86%
Urban 50% 75%

8. Eligible Households
Priority Category Antyodaya Category
Goods Price / Kg
35 Kg per month per household at the
same rate.
Rice ₹ 3
Wheat ₹ 2
Coarse Grains ₹ 1
Identification of HH :
 Eligibility criteria need to be defined.
 Method has to be devised to identify HH to meet eligibility
criteria.
Both rest on state government.
SECC was the parameter set by union government.

9. Why bihar?
 In this light one can argue that if there is need of proper
functioning of PDS anywhere in India it would be in the state of
Bihar.
 Recently the scenario has changed considerably since 2011
Bihar (in 2011) India(in 2011)
55% people lives BPL Only 36% BPL
Poverty-above 30% in rural areas Poverty- above 20% in rural areas
Accessing PDS-42% in rural areas Accessing PDS-above 50% in rural
areas
Share of PDS in cereal
consumption-17% in rural areas
Share of PDS in cereal consumption-
above 20% in rural areas

10. Trends in incidence of poverty in Bihar (%)
Source : International Food Policy Research Institute

11. % households accessing PDS for cereals
Source : International Food Policy Research Institute

12. Share of PDS in cereal consumption (%)
Source : International Food Policy Research Institute

13. Bihar PDS and reforms
Bihar’s PDS used to be one of the worst in
India.
NSS data from 2000-2010 shows that very
few HH were getting food grains from PDS.
PDS leakages can be estimated by
matching NSS data on HH purchase with
FCI offtake from the central government.
Government of Bihar initiated a system of
tracking coupon based PDS.
But Bihar has over relied on the coupon
system to prevent embezzlement and
neglected other safeguards

15. Source : EPW Aug’22 2015

16. Entitlements received
Priority Antayodaya
74% of all HH had a priority card as
per Bihar NFSA survey 2014.
Transition from HH to per capita is a
loss for small HH
The average HH size was 5.5
persons according to SECC data.
66 HH had Antayodaya card. Of
them 29 had also a priority card.
When they used priority card only
few of them benefitted.
Source : BIHAR NFSA SURVEY 2014

17. Achievements
Survey team (in 2013) were impressed with these positive
changes:--
 Faulty BPL list is replaced with SECC data
 People awareness regarding entitlements –increased
 Perceptions of the quality of food grains—improved
 Leakages in the PDS-- declined
 Coverage is widened after NFSA
 Distribution of PDS ration--more regular
 Gaps in supply, despite continuing problems of irregular supply,
now seems to be shorter and fewer.
 The sample HH in Arpathal (Banka dist.) has brought 96%
entitlements during the two months preceding the survey.
(source of survey:EPW-vol.50 22 Aug 2015)

18. Challenges Ahead……
 New list of ration cards urgently needs to be put in public domain
 More can be done to ensure that people are clear about their entitlements
 An enormous amount of works remain to be done in PDS reforms
 PDS dealers need to be properly monitored
 State is yet to achieve mandatory coverage
 List of eligible HH must be put in public domain
 HH wrongly excluded must be included
 Supply chain needs to be streamlined

19. Concluding remarks
 In the light of dismal
functioning of PDS in Bihar
and notorious record of
corruption and
misgovernance, the recent
development can be regarded
as reasonably encouraging
 All the positive changes can
be attributed to political
commitments
 However, there is still a long
way to go in ensuring that the
system is reliable, transparent
and corruption free

20. References
Economic and political weekly
Indian economy by misra and puri
International food policy and research institute
NFSA: bihar survey 2014

21. Thank You! 
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