The government has told a parliamentary standing committee that it cannot add more beneficiaries to the list of recipients of free monthly food handouts until the next census, despite an increase in population, which implies that many poverty-stricken households remain outside the welfare net.
Answering queries of the standing committee on food and public distribution, the food ministry said about 7.9 million people are still left to be covered under the public distribution system or PDS for various reasons despite being eligible, based on population figures from the 2011 census.
Asked by the panel about problems faced in implementing the country’s food-security law, the ministry stated: “At the time of implementation of the National Food Security Act, the latest published figures of Census pertaining to the year 2011 was used to determine the coverage of all States/Union Territories (UTs). Therefore, any revision in the coverage under the NFSA shall be possible only after the relevant data of next population Census is published.”
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The National Food Security Act, 2013, which provides for food handouts to the poor, makes it necessary to cover up to 75% of the rural population and up to 50% of the urban dwellers under the PDS, which according to the previous census came to 813 million people.
“At present, against the intended coverage of 81.35 crore (813.5 million) persons, only 80.56 crore (805.6 million) beneficiaries are covered. Still, there is scope for identification of 0.79 crore (7.9 million) beneficiaries,” the ministry told the panel, which presented its eighth report on demands for grants (2025-26) to both houses on Wednesday.
The decadal census was due in 2021, when it was deferred due to the Covid pandemic. The quota of eligible beneficiaries of free food grains is based on population figures derived from the nation headcount exercise.
Nearly three in four people in India couldn’t afford a healthy diet in 2021, according to a Food and Agriculture Organization report.
The parliamentary panel said it was pleased to know that the food security Act was being effectively and uniformly implemented and several reforms to make the PDS robust had been undertaken by the government.
In the 28 months between April 2020 and December 2022, nearly 111.8 million tonnes of foodgrains were given free under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna to help people cope with the panel, at a financial outlay of about ₹3.91 lakh crore, the food ministry told the panel.