India’s food security debate has entered a new phase. Estimates based on India’s latest household consumption survey suggest that the share of households unable to afford the ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) recommended diet fell from about 52% in 2011-12 to about 25% in 2023-24, affecting 25% of rural and 21% of urban households. This is substantial progress, but crores of households still cannot afford an adequate healthy diet. Poverty, hunger and inability to afford a healthy diet overlap; a modern food-security policy must recognise that they are not identical.

The draft National Food Security (Amendment) Bill, 2026 links Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) entitlements to household size. The policy challenge is to correct inequity without reducing existing foodgrain access, while creating a pathway towards nutrition security.

Designing a fairer entitlement

Priority Households receive 5 kg of foodgrains per person per month, while AAY households receive a flat 35 kg per household. The latter protects smaller and highly vulnerable families but provides progressively less per person as household size grows: a seven-member household receives 5 kg per person and an eight-member household about 4.4 kg, below the Priority Household entitlement. The draft proposes 7 kg per person, capped at 35 kg. This would reduce support for households with one to four members by 20% to 80%, leave those with five or more unchanged, and provide no AAY household with additional foodgrain.

Tamil Nadu illustrates the potential impact. The State government reports that 15.75 lakh of its 18.64 lakh AAY households (84.5%) have fewer than five members. It estimates that the proposal would reduce the monthly AAY allocation from 65,261 tonnes to 42,040 tonnes, a fall of about 35.6%. Although specific to Tamil Nadu, these projections show why household composition and vulnerability must be considered: a smaller household may include an older person living alone, a widow or a person with disability.

As the proposal is taken forward, the existing 35 kg entitlement should be preserved through an explicit no-loss safeguard. Because retaining 35 kg as both the minimum and maximum would leave the per-person formula with no practical effect, support beyond 35 kg for larger or highly dependent households should be examined as a separate policy question using household-consumption evidence, nutritional requirements and transparent fiscal costing.

Entitlement reform must also address coverage. Although the NFSA allows coverage of up to 75% of the rural and 50% of the urban population, its 81.35-crore beneficiary ceiling remains based on Census 2011; about 80 crore people receive free foodgrains. Against the estimated population of 146.4 crore in 2025, this ceiling covers only 55.6%. It should be recalculated when the Census 2027 figures become available. Meanwhile, updated population estimates and deprivation criteria could support a transparent review, with accessible inclusion and appeal mechanisms.

Protecting grain while diversifying diets

Protecting the grain entitlement does not mean preserving a cereal-only understanding of food security. NFHS-6 (2023-24) found that stunting among children under five fell from 35.5% to 29.3%, but wasting and underweight barely changed, from 19.3% to 19.0% and 32.1% to 31.8%, respectively. Only about 15% of children (six-23 months) receive a minimally adequate diet. Meanwhile, the ICMR-India Diabetes (INDIAB) study estimated that 101 million Indians had diabetes and 136 million had prediabetes in 2021. These figures reflect India’s double burden of malnutrition. Maternal undernutrition and low birth weight are associated with greater risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) later in life, while present-day diet and other behavioural factors add further risk.

Foodgrain entitlement should not itself be equated with diabetes risk. The concern is that a predominantly cereal-based food basket, when combined with diets already high in carbohydrates and low in protein-rich foods, may reinforce dietary imbalance. The solution is not to reduce essential cereal entitlements, but to finance dietary diversification alongside.

The dietary evidence favours balance over simply increasing or substituting cereals. A 2025 ICMR-INDIAB study of 18,090 adults found carbohydrates supplied 62.3% of daily energy nationally and protein 12%. Adults with the highest carbohydrate intake had 30% higher odds of newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes than those with the lowest intake. Replacing refined cereals with whole-wheat or millet flour was not linked to lower risk when the carbohydrate share remained high. Modelling suggested greater benefit from replacing some carbohydrate calories with protein-rich foods.

These observational and modelled findings cannot establish that changing the Public Distribution System (PDS) basket will prevent diabetes, but caution against treating more grain or millets alone as a complete nutrition policy. The ICMR-NIN’s 2024 guidelines recommend that cereals and millets provide at most 45% of energy, with greater contributions from pulses, beans, milk, nuts, vegetables, fruits and other protein sources.

The PDS cannot supply the entire healthy plate; it can best provide affordable, shelf-stable foods. States should be supported to offer pulses, local rice, wheat and millet choices and, where feasible, healthy edible oils. Local production and consumption should guide supply chains and effective Minimum Support Price (MSP) procurement for pulse, millet and oilseed growers. Sustained public investment should link food, nutrition and health systems through complementary programmes: the PDS, Anganwadi services for young children and pregnant or lactating women, and Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) for schoolchildren. These programmes could provide eggs, milk or suitable alternatives where locally acceptable and feasible. Dietary diversification must be separately budgeted, not financed by reducing cereal entitlements. The 2026-27 Union Budget allocates ₹2,27,629 crore to food subsidy, underscoring the need for transparent costing. Additions should be tested through phased State pilots assessing actual consumption, dietary diversity, anaemia and glycaemic risk, household spending, wastage, exclusion and supply feasibility. Pilot evidence can guide fiscally sustainable expansion and help assess potential longer-term health and fiscal benefits.

Linking food access with nutrition support

The NFSA’s strength lies in guaranteeing reliable, dignified food access. India has built a formidable delivery network. By the end of 2025, 5.50 lakh of 5.51 lakh fair price shops used electronic point-of-sale devices, while One Nation One Ration Card covered nearly all NFSA beneficiaries. These systems support portability and monitoring but must include reliable offline alternatives, assisted or doorstep access for people with limited mobility, and a clear guarantee that authentication failure will not lead to denial of entitled foodgrains.

Fair price shops could support last-mile nutrition information and referral. Simple multilingual receipt, display, voice and mobile messages could promote dietary diversity, appropriate cereal portions, pulses, healthier oils, and less salt and added sugar. Where feasible, trained health workers could undertake periodic outreach through India’s primary-health infrastructure, linking willing adults to government diabetes, hypertension and other NCD services. By June 2026, India had over 1.86 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, while government data recorded 41.3 crore diabetes screenings. Fair price shop dealers should facilitate information and referral, not diagnose or counsel. Participation must be voluntary, confidential and unrelated to ration eligibility or authentication.

The amendment should therefore be situated within a broader architecture for food and nutrition security, anchored in three safeguards. First, any per-person formula should preserve the existing 35 kg monthly entitlement for every AAY household through an explicit no-loss guarantee. Second, the adequacy of the 35 kg ceiling should be reviewed periodically for larger households and those with high dependency or nutritional needs, using consumption, nutritional and fiscal evidence. Third, dietary diversification must be separately financed and progressively implemented without reducing existing cereal entitlements.

India’s next food security reform must protect people from hunger while also addressing the dietary drivers of diabetes and other NCDs. Its success should be judged not only by the tons of grain moved, but by whether vulnerable families can eat enough, eat healthier and obtain their entitlements with dignity.

Viswanathan Mohan is Chairman, Madras Diabetes Research Foundation, Chennai; Soumya Swaminathan is Chairperson, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai; Nijina M. Nazar is Principal Project Scientist, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai

Published - August 13, 2026 12:16 am IST