Impact of Public Distribution System on Nutritional Security: Evidences from Jharkhand

Availability of food grains is a necessary but not passable condition to ensure food security to the poor. In addition to food availability, it is necessary that food accessibility is also ensured to the poor households. This can be done either by raising the level of incomes of these poor households or by providing them food grains at subsidized prices. Public Distribution System (PDS) is a way to ensure accessibility of food grains to these poor households. This paper is an attempt to study the impact of PDS on nutritional security of the households. Data were collected from rural households in the Dumka district of Jharkhand, India. The results indicated that lack of availability of food and mismanagement in PDS has hampered the nutritional security of the households.