Challenges to Food Security in India:
- Beneficiaries have complained of receiving poor quality food grains.
- Farmers receive Minimum Support Price (MSP) from the Government for crops such as wheat, paddy, and sugarcane.
- The MSP is higher than the market price. There is very minimum procurement of other crops by the Government at MSP.
- Due to this factor farmers do not have the incentive to produce other crops such as pulses. This puts immense pressure on the water table as the above crops are highly water-intensive.
- Due to the possibility of increasing nutritional imbalance in food grains, the Government must expand subsidies and include other protein-rich food items.
- Under the National Food Security Act, the identification of beneficiaries is to be completed by State Governments.
- As per the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General in 2016, a massive 49 % of the beneficiaries were yet to be identified by the State Governments.
- The available storage capacity in states was inadequate for the allocated quantity of food grains as per the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).