The National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, is an Act of the Parliament of India that aims to provide food and nutritional security by ensuring access to an adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices for people to live a life with dignity. The Act was signed into law on September 12, 2013, effective retroactively from July 5, 2013, marking a paradigm shift from a welfare-based approach to a rights-based approach to food security. It was created to strengthen the existing Public Distribution System (PDS) and convert the government's food security programs into legal entitlements, addressing issues like inadequate service and corruption in the previous system.
The NFSA works by legally entitling up to 75% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population to receive highly subsidized foodgrains through the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). Beneficiaries fall into two categories: Priority Households (PHH), who are entitled to 5 kg of foodgrains per person per month, and Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) households, who are entitled to 35 kg per household per month. The subsidized prices were fixed at ₹3/kg for rice, ₹2/kg for wheat, and ₹1/kg for coarse grains. The Act also mandates nutritional support, connecting to the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) schemes for children aged 6 months to 14 years. Furthermore, pregnant women and lactating mothers are entitled to a maternity benefit of not less than ₹6,000.
The NFSA is closely connected to the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), which it reformed, and the concept of the Right to Food derived from Article 21 of the Constitution. A significant recent change is the Central Government's decision to provide foodgrains free of cost to all NFSA beneficiaries (AAY and PHH) starting from January 1, 2023, extending the benefit for five years from January 1, 2024, effectively making the subsidized prices of ₹3/2/1 per kg zero. The core mechanism of legal entitlement and the coverage percentages based on the 2011 Census population figures have stayed the same, though there are ongoing discussions about updating the coverage to current population estimates.