The National Food Security Act (NFSA) of India aims to provide subsidized food grains to approximately two-thirds of India’s 1.25 billion population. The introduction of this Act in 2013, marks a major paradigm shift from a welfare based to a rights based approach to address food insecurity. This article attempts to understand the effect of NFSA on food security outcomes in India. It attempts to analyze the origin of right to food discourse and factors behind perpetual failure in food security outcomes by applying food security measurement framework. The article then focuses on the persistent failure in redressing childhood undernutrition. The article elaborates the impact of NFSA on food security outcome indicators for India. The article concludes that the policy needs to look beyond subsidized food grain assistance for ensuring the nutritional security of people of India.
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