Food and Nutrition: A Lower Priority in Indian Government Budgets

India is known for its extensive public programmes on food and nutrition. The Public Distribution System (PDS) currently distributes five kilos of food grains per month to over 800 million people free of charge. Its school midday meal scheme and child-care centres under integrated child-care services together reach over 120 million children.

These schemes are crucial for the right to food and nutrition and serve as lifelines for marginalized communities. However, India stands out for ranking poorly in various nutrition and food security indices. According to the Global Hunger Index 2024, India ranks 105 out of 124 countries. According to FAO statistics, 194.6 million people are undernourished.

While large public programmes do exist, most analyses suggest that India remains a laggard when it comes to public spending on health, nutrition, and social security. In this context, budgetary allocations, especially of the Union government, have been moving further away from what is required to achieve nutrition goals.

In this article Raj Shekhar Singh and Dipa Sinha examine how the declining budgetary focus on social programs adversely impacts children and women in India.