Implementation Status of National Food Security act (NFSA) in Drought Prone Bankura District of West Bengal
Keywords:
NFSA, PDS, Food Security, Social Welfare, West Bengal, Bankura DistrictAbstract
The present paper examines the implementation status of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013 in a drought prone district of Bankura in West Bengal. The “Khadya Sathi Prakalpa”, a scheme of Government of West Bengal, coordinates NFSA and Rajya Khadya Suraksha Yojana (RKSY) to increase the scope of NFSA to ensure food and nutritional security to the vulnerable and poor. The scheme was implemented on 27th January 2016 in Bankura. Simple analytical approach is used to analyse data collected from randomly selected 424 households spread over 4 blocks of the district. In spite of delayed implementation of NFSA, there is a wide coverage (85.6% of sample population) of the Khadya Sathi Prakalpa of the people living in Jangalmahal areas in West Bengal. Government supportive system towards the food basket improves cereal consumption to the great extent of about 20-22% across different social groups in between before and after NFSA. Share of PDS in household’s cereal consumption requirement is estimated to be 98, 80.18, 70.25, 68.18 and 69.88 per cent for AAY, OBC, ST, SC and Others respectively. The scheme has great potentiality to remove hungry people particularly those are living in drought prone areas of West Bengal. The major concern is that it creates people’s dependency more and more on this highly subsidized scheme and it distorts normal behavior of both agricultural labour and food grains markets. The complexity in issuing different types of ration cards in West Bengal may be minimized by the development of computerized PDS supply management and the expansion of digital- bar coded ration card to update list of beneficiaries transparently with inclusion and exclusion criteria on regular basis and to save government subsidy.
References
Banga, R. and Sekhar, C.S.C. (2015). Public stockholding of food in India: Can it distort international trade? Working Paper, Centre for WTO Studies (CWS), Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi.
GOI (2015). Socio Economic Caste Census 2011: Government of India, http://secc.gov.in ,retrieved 13/6/16
GOI (2016). CAG Compliance Audit Report on Preparedness for Implementation of National Food Security Act Presented, Press Release, Office of The Comptroller &Auditor General of India, New Delhi, 29th April, 2016.
GOI (2016). Evaluation Study on Role of Public Distribution System in Shaping Household and Nutritional Security India, DMEO Report No. 233, Government of India, NITI Aayog, Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office, New Delhi-110001, December, 2016
Government of West Bengal (2016). www.pdswb.gov.in, Retrieved 13/6/2016
Gulati, A., Saini, S. (2015). Leakages from Public Distribution System (PDS) and the Way, Working Paper 294, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations
Haldar, U. (2017). Access to Common Pool Resources, Rural livelihood and Food Security for SC/ST households: A study of Bankura District of West Bengal , PhD Thesis Department of Economics, West Bengal State University.
Puri, R. (2017). India’s National Food Security Act (NFSA): Early Experiences, Lansa Working Paper Series, MSSRF, Science for sustainable Development. Volume 2017 No 14.
Saini, S. and Gulati, A. (2015). The National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013-Challenges, Buffer Stocking and the Way Forward, Working Paper 297, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.
