Excluding the Needy: The Public Provisioning of Food in India* *

Abstract

It is a great honour and privilege for me to deliver the Eleventh Daniel Thorner Memorial Lecture. Since my first introduction to economics as an undergraduate, the writings of Daniel Thorner have been a source of insight and inspiration as has been his life-long vision of progressive democratic social change. At the very outset, I would like to state that I have chosen to focus on the distribution aspects of food security in the lecture, and as result, certain very important and relevant issues relating to the new world trade order and its implications for food security are overlooked. I will make my presentation in the form of 12 propositions on food security. I want to begin by affirming that the provision of secure access to food still remains a relevant and critical issue for public policy in India. The Rome Declaration on World Food Security defines access to food as "physical and economic access, at all times, to sufficient, safe and nutritious food (for people) to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life". In other words, food security requires access to adequate quantity and satisfactory quality of food. As a country, we have failed miserably in ensuring access to food to all our people. Let me give a few illustrations of the scale of chronic hunger and nutritional deprivation in India. According to the latest National Family Health Survey, conducted in 1998-99, at the all India level: