Abstract

Despiteensuring ample availability of food, food insecurity still exists at themicro-level in the country and had remained a formidable challenge in India.The central pivot of the Bill is large-scale subsidized grain distribution toalmost two-thirds of the country's population. National Food Security Bill (NFSB)aimsto eradicate hunger and malnutrition from India in the shortest possible time.The proposed legislation marks a paradigm shift in addressing the problem offood security—from the current welfare approach to a ‘right’ based approach. Itis therefore important to get it right, not just in terms of making it a legalentitlement under the “rights approach” but making it a success on theground.  NFSB also aims at improving thenutritional status of the population especially of women and children. Femaleeducation, access to clean drinking water, availability of hygienic sanitationfacilities are the prime prerequisites for improved nutrition. It needs to berecognised that malnutrition is a multi-dimensional problem and needs amulti-pronged strategy. Thus, present paper focuses on the overview of NFSB,highlightingvarious challenges and issues in it’s implementation.

Keyword:food, food security, accessibility, absorption, food security bill,malnutrition