Constitution of India does not clearly provide for Right to food, the fundamental Right to life enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution does include Right to live with human dignity and right to food and other basic necessities. The Article 47 of the Constitution also provides that the State shall regard the raising of level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties.
The Parliament has enacted the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA) after keeping in view the goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger as one of the goals of United Nations and after keeping in view the constitutional guarantees for ensuring food security of the people as also for improving the nutritional status of the population, especially of women and children.
The object of the National Food Security Act, 2013 are to provide for food and nutritional security in human life cycle approach, by ensuring access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices to people to live a life with dignity.
This Act has been implemented in all States/ UTs.
One of the guiding principles of the Act is its “life cycle approach, wherein special provisions have been made for pregnant women and lactating mothers and children in the age group of 6 months to 14 years, by entitling them to receive nutritious meals free of cost, through a widespread network of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) centers, called Anganwadi centers under the ICDS schemes, and also through the schools under Mid-day Meal (MDM) scheme”. Higher nutritional norms have also been prescribed for malnourished children. Pregnant women and lactating mothers are entitled to receive cash maternity benefit to partly compensate them for the wage loss during the period of pregnancy and to supplement nutrition.
The Central Government after consultation with the State Governments has also framed the Rules 6 called Cash Transfer of Food Subsidy Rules 2015, in exercise of the powers conferred by clause (d) of sub section 2 of Section 39 read with clause (h) of sub section 2 of Section 12 of the NFSA. Under the said Rules, the State Governments have been enabled to implement the scheme with the approval of the Central Government to provide food subsidy in cash directly into the bank accounts of entitled households to purchase the entitled quantity of food grains from the open market.
Significantly, Chapter VI under the Head “Women Empowerment” has been incorporated which provides that the eldest woman who is not less than 18 years of age in every eligible household, shall be head of the household for the purpose of issue of ration cards.
The Grievance Redressal Mechanism at the District and the State level has also been provided for expeditious and effective redressal of grievances of the aggrieved persons in the matters relating to distribution of entitled food grains or meals under Chapter II and to enforce entitlements under the Act. Thus, there being a systematic legal framework provided under the NFSA for the implementation of the schemes and programmes like Targeted Public Distribution System, Mid-day Meal Scheme, Integrated Child Development Services and Maternity Cash Entitlement along with a Monitoring Mechanism and a Grievance Redressal Mechanism, and the States/UTs having also implemented various other schemes and programmes under the said Act.