Answer

Introduction

According to the World Bank (2025), India has significantly reduced poverty, with extreme poverty falling from 16.2% in 2011-12 to just 2.3% in 2022-23.While the Public Distribution System (PDS) has helped reduce deprivation, challenges remain in ensuring adequate nutrition beyond cereals, highlighting the need for structural reforms.

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Persistent Challenges in Ensuring Adequate Nutrition through PDS

• Cereal-Centric Distribution: PDS is heavily focused on rice and wheat, even though desired cereal consumption is already saturated.
  Eg: The survey shows cereals account for only 10% of household expenditure, with identical consumption across the poorest and richest fractiles.
• Food Deprivation Despite Subsidies: Even after PDS support, deprivation remains high in rural areas.
  Eg: With PDS adjustment, 40% of rural and 10% of urban populations still cannot afford two thalis daily.
• Leakage of Benefits to Non-Poor: Subsidies are widely accessed even by households not facing deprivation.
  Eg: In rural India, individuals in the 90–95% fractile receive 88% of the subsidy received by the poorest 0–5%, despite having 3x higher consumption.
• Unwieldy and Ineffective Subsidy Spread: The broad-based system covering around 80 crore strains fiscal capacity without effectively targeting the most vulnerable.
• Neglect of Protein and Micronutrient Gaps: PDS fails to address nutritional deficiencies in protein-rich and costly foods like pulses
  

Reforms to Enhance Effectiveness of PDS

• Restructuring Subsidy Allocation: Redirect subsidies towards the poorest and remove them for households exceeding minimum nutritional standards.
• Expanding Distribution of Pulses: Incorporating protein-rich pulses can reduce nutritional inequality across classes.
• Compact and Targeted PDS: Shift from universal cereal distribution to compact, need-based food support.
  Eg: Current PDS is “unwieldy and ineffective” due to resource dilution across all sections.
• Ensuring Balanced Diet via Thali Index: Use thali-based consumption metrics for better policy targeting.
  Eg: Despite poverty decline, 50% rural and 20% urban populations remain deprived of two thalis/day, highlighting nutrition gaps.
• Reducing FCI’s Stocking Requirements: Lowering surplus procurement and storage costs can enable fiscal savings for diversification.
  

Conclusion

Reforms must shift PDS from a cereal-heavy, universal system to a targeted, nutrition-sensitive safety net. The Shanta Kumar Committee (2015) also recommended reducing excess cereal entitlements, plugging leakages, and diversifying towards pulses and nutritious food. Such restructuring will ensure affordability of two thalis daily for every household, advancing India’s food security with efficiency and equity.

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