INDIAN AGRICULTURE

Introduction:
 Agriculture remains the most important sector of the Indian Economy whether it be the pre-independence or the post-independence periods.
Special Features of Agriculture:
i) From monetary point of view the share of agriculture sector in the economy remains at 14.1% of the GDP in the fiscal 1950 - 51 agriculture accounted for 55.4% in the GDP.
ii) The share of agriculture has been falling in the country's gross income while industrial and services sector's shares have been on a rise constantly.
» From the livelihood point of view still 58.2% people of India depend on the agriculture sector.
» In the developed economics such as the USA, France, Norway, the UK and Japan agriculture contributes only 2% of their GDP with only 2% people dependent on this sector for their livelihood.

iii) This is the biggest unorganised sector of the economy accounting for more than 90% share in the total unorganised labour force.
iv) It is the only profession which still carries no burden of individual Income tax.
v) India is among the 13 leading exporters of agricultural products in the world.
vi) According to the export figures, agriculture is deeply related to industrial growth and the national income in India.
» 1% increase in the agricultural growth leads to 0.5% increase in industrial output (growth) and 0.7% increase in the national income of India.
vii) Productivity gap between the field and ideal farm practices decreasing.
viii) Nearly 66% of the cropped area in the economy still depends on the uncertainties of monsoon for their irrigational requirements.

Agriculture Seasons in India

» Kharif
» Rabi   

The agriculture crop year in India is from July to June.                   
» The Indian cropping season is classified into two main seasons
     i) Kharif and
    ii) Rabi based on the monsoon.
» The Kharif crops include rice, maize/ sorghum, pearl/millet/bajra, finger millet/ ragi (cereals), arhar (pulses), soyabean, groundnut (oil seeds), cotton etc.
» The Rabi crops include wheat, barley, oats (cerals), chikpea/gram (pulses), linseed, mustard (oilseeds) etc.
Kharif: The Kharif cropping season is from July to October during the south west / summer monsoon.
Rabi: The Rabi cropping season is from October to March (north-east/ returning/winter monsoon).  

» The crops, grown between March and June are summer crops known as of Jayads.
» Pakistan and Bangladesh are two other countries that are using the term Kharif and Rabi to describe about their cropping patterns.
» The terms Kharif and Rabi originate from Arabic language where Kharif means Autumn and Rabi means Spring.

FOOD PHILOSOPHY OF INDIA

     Indian food philosophy is generally seen divided into three phases with their own objectives and challenges.

The First Phase

     This phase continued for the first three decades after Independence. The main aim and the struggle of this phase was producing as much food grains as required by the Indian population.
» Achieving physical access to food.
» The idea of the Green Revolution at the end of this phase atleast gave India the confidence of realising the objectives. At the end of 1980's, India was a self-sufficient country regarding food.     

The Second Phase

    A new challenge confronted India - achieving Economic access to food.
 The situation went on worsening and by early 2000 there was a paradoxical situation in the country when it was having more than times buffer stocks of food grains in the central pool, but in several states people three were dying due to lack of food.

» As the inputs of the Green Revolution were costlier its output naturally were to be costlier. To fight the situation there should have been a time - bound and target - oriented macro - economic policy support.
» India is still in this phase and trying to solve the crisis through twin approach firstly, by creating maximum number of gainful employment and secondly by cutting cost of food grains.
» India is still fighting to achieve physical reach to the required level of food.

The Third phase

 By the end of 1980's, world experts started questioning the very way world was carrying on with different modes of production.
» All developed economies had declared their agriculture to be an industry.
» The much - hyped Green Revolution was declared ecologically untenable and the world headed for organic farming, green farming, etc.
» India needed a new kind of Green Revolution which could deliver it the physical, economic as well as ecological access to food - the Second Green Revolution an all-in-one approach towards the agriculture sector. 

LAND REFORMS

Land reforms in India had three objectives.
i) Removing institutional discrepancies of the agrarian structure inherited from the past which obstructed increasing agricultural production, such as
» The size of agricultural holding, land ownership, land inheritance, tenancy reforms, abolition of intermediaries introduction of modern institutional factors to agriculture, etc.
ii) The other objective of the land reforms in India was related to the issue of socio-economic inequality in the country.
iii) The Third objective of the land reforms in India was the objective of increasing agricultural production for solving the inter-related problems of poverty, malnutrition and food insecurity.

To realise the objectives of the land reforms, the government took three main steps which had many internal sub-steps.
1) Abolition of Intermediaries
     Under this step, the age-old exploitative land tenure system of the Zamindari, Mahalwari and Ryotwari were fully abolished.
2) Tenancy Reforms
     Three inter-related reforms protecting the land tenants were effected.
i) Regulation of rent so that a fixed and rational rate of rent could be paid by the share croppers to the land owners.
ii) Security of tenure so that a share-cropper could be feel secure about his future income and his economic security.
iii) Ownership rights to tenants so that the landless masses (i.e., the tenants, the share - croppers) could in transferred the final rights for the land they plough land to the tiller.
3) Reorganisation of Agriculture
i) Redistribution of land among the landless poor masses after promulgating timely ceiling laws.
» The move failed badly with few expections, such as West Bengal, Kerala and partially in Andhra Pradesh.

ii) Consolidation of land could only succeed in the regions of the Green Revolution (i.e., Haryana, Punjab and Western Uttar Pradesh).
iii) Co-operative farming which has a high socio economic moral base, was only used by the big farmers to save their form the draconian ceiling laws.
» Data regarding the numerical achievements of land reform have been highly discouraging.
» Tenancy reforms made tenants have their rights but only on 4% of the total operated areas of India.
» Redistribution of ownership rights of land took place but only on 2% of the total operated area of the country.
» Taken together, the whole process of land reforms could benefit only 6% of the operated area of the country.
» It was the failure of land reforms which made the government easily attracted towards the new policy of the Green Revolution.

Reasons for Failure of Land Reforms

The following three could be considered the most important ones
i) Land in India is considered a symbol of social prestige, status and identity unlike the other Economies which succeeded in their land reform programmes where it is seen as just an economic asset for income-earning.
ii) Lack of political will which was required to affect land reforms and make it a successful programme.
iii) The rampant corruption in public life, political hypocrisy and leadership failure in the Indian democratic system.

Agriculture Holdings

    The average size of land holding in India is continuously decreasing due to rapid and high population growth Agricultural holdings have been classified into three categories.
1. Economic Holding: Economic holding is a minimum essential area for profitable agriculture.
2. Family Holding: Family holding is a plough unit which is neither less nor more for an average size family to cultivate it properly.
3. Optimum Holding: Maximum size of the holding which must be possessed and owned by a family is called optimum holding.

Computerisation of Land Records
     Two centrally sponsored schemes, viz
» Computerisation of Land Records (CLR) and
» Strengthening of Revenue Administration and Updating of Land Records (SRA & ULR) are being administered by the Land Reforms Division in the Department of Land Resources.
» At present, the scheme is being implemented in 582 districts of the country excepting those districts where there are no land records.

GREEN REVOLUTION

» It is the introduction of new techniques of agriculture.
» Ground the world in Early 1960's at first for wheat and by the next decade for rice, too.
» The Green Revolution was centred around the use of the High Yielding Variety (HYV) of seeds developed by the US Agro scientist Norman Borlaug doing research on a British Rockfellor Foundation Scholarship in Mexico by the early 1960's.
» The new wheat seeds which he developed invivo claimed to increase its productivity by more than 200%.
» By 1965, the seeds were successfully tested and were being used by farmers in food deficient countries such as Mexico, Taiwan.

Components of the Green Revolution

1. The HYV Seeds

» They were popularly called the dwarf variety of seeds with the help of repeated mutations.
» Borlaug had been able to develop a seed which was raised in its nature of nutrients supplied to the different parts of the wheat plant.
» Against the leaves, stem and in favour of the grain.
» These seeds were non-photosynthetic, hence non-dependent on sun rays for targeted yields.
 

2. The Chemical Fertilizers

» The level of nutrients they required could not be supplied with the traditional composites because they have low concentration of nutrients content and required bigger area while sowing.
» A high concentration fertilizer was required which could be given to the targeted seed only.
» The only option was the chemical fertilizers.
» Urea (N), Phosphate (P) and Potash (K).

3. The Irrigation

For controlled growth of crops
» Adequate dilution of fertilizers, a controlled means of water supply was required.
» It made two important compulsions.
» Firstly the area of such crops should be at least free of flooding.
» Secondly artificial water supply should be developed.

4. Chemical Pesticides and Germicides

» As the new seeds were new and non - acclimatised to local pests, germs and diseases than the established indigenous varieties, use of pesticides and germicides became compulsory for result oriented and secured yields.

5. Chemical Herbicides and Weedicides

» To prevent costlier input of fertilisers not being consumed by the herbs and the weeds in the farmlands, herbicides and weedicides were used while sowing the HYV seeds.
 

6. Credit, Storage, Marketing/ Distribution

» For farmers to be capable of using the new and the costlier inputs of the green revolution, availability of easy and cheaper credit was a must.
» All these peripheral infrastructure were developed by the countries going for the Green Revolution with softer loans coming from the World Bank.
» India being the biggest beneficiary.

Impact of the Green Revolution

    The Green Revolution had it positive as well as negative socio - economic and ecological impacts on the countries around the world.
1. Socio - Economic Impact
» Food production increased in such a way (wheat in 1960's and rice, by 1970's) that many countries became self-sufficient (self sufficiency of food must be not be confused with the idea of food security) and some even emerged as food exporting countries.
» Rise in the incidence of malaria due to water logging, a swing in the balanced cropping patterns in favour of wheat and rice putting pulses, oil seeds, maize, barley on the margins, etc. were the negative impacts.
2. Eclolgical Impact
» The most devastating negative impact of the Green Revolution was the Ecological one.

i) Critical Ecological Crisis
    It was found that critical ecological crises in the Green Revolution region are showing up.
a) Soil fertility being degraded
b) Water lable falling down
c) Environmental degradation due to excessive and Uncontrolled use of chemical fertilisers, Pesticides and herbicides
ii) Toxic Level in Food Chain
    Toxic level in the food chain of India has increased to such a high level that nothing Produced in india is fit for human consumption.
» Weedicides and their industrial production combined together had polluted the land, water and air to such an alarmingly high level that the whole food chain had been a prey of high toxicity.

MINIMUM SUPPORT PRICES (MSP)

     The Government of India started announcing the Minimum Support Prices
(MSP in 1966 - 67) for wheat which was expanded to cover many more crops in the coming years.
» It is minimum prices of which the government will purchase farmers crops - whatever may be the market prices for the corps.

PROCUREMENT PRICES
      Procurement prices were announced higher than the MSP since the government was lagging behind when its food grain procurement required to maintain the buffer stocks.
ISSUE PRICE
    The price at which food grains are allowed by the government to off take from the FCI this is the price at which the FCI sells its food grains. The FCI has been incurring huge losses in the form of food subsidies.
BUFFER STOCK
    India has policy of maintaining a minimum reserve of food grains (only for wheat and rice). So that food is available throughout the country at affordable prices around the year.
» The main supply from here goes to The Public Distribution System (now TPDS) and at times goes to the open market to check the rising prices if needed.
DECENTRALISED PROCUREMENT SCHEME
     The Decentralised Procurement Scheme of the government of India that is in operation since 1997.

» Under this response from the state, this scheme the designated states procure, store and also issue food grains under TPDS.
» The Decentralised System of Procurement, helps to cover more farmers under the MSP operations, improves efficiency of the PDS, provides varieties of food grains more suitable to local taste, and reduces the transportation costs of the FCI.

SUGAR SECTOR REFORMS

    India is the largest consumer and second largest producer of sugar after Brazil.
» Sugar and sugarcane are notified as essential commodities under the essential commodities Act 1955.
» The suger industry in India is over regulated and prone to cyclicality due to price interventions.
» A report on regulation of the sugar sector in India: The way forward has been submitted by the committee under the chairmanship of Dr. C. Rangarajan, Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister the measures suggested are as follows.
(i) Phasing out cane reservation area.
(ii) Dispensing with minimum distance criteria.

(iii) Dispensing with the levy sugar system.
(iv) State that want to provide sugar under the PDS may requirement, fix the issue price and subsidize from their own budgets.
(v) Dispensing with the regulated release mechanism (of non - levy) Sugar.
(vi) Stable trade policy.
(vii) No quantitative or movement restrictions on by product like molasses and ethanol and dispensing with compulsory jute packing.
(vii) A stable, predictable and consistent policy reforms to be brought about in a fiscally neutral manner and issues considered for implementation in a phased manner.
 

EDIBLE OIL ECONOMY

     India is one of the largest producers of oilseeds in the world.
» However, 50 percent of its domestic requirements are today, met through imports, out of which crude plamoil and the RBD (Refined Bleached and Deodorised) palmolein constitute about 77 percent and soyabean oil constitutes about 12 percent.

AGRICULTURAL MARKETING

     Agriculture markets are regulated in India through the APMC Acts.
» According to the provisions of the APMC acts of the states, every APMC (Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee) is authorised to collect market fees from the buyers.
» Traders in the prescribed manner on the sale of notified agricultural produce.
» All this suggests that a single point market fee system is necessary for facilitating free movement of produce, bringing price stabilisation, and reducing price differences between the producer and consumer market segments.
» The cleaning, grading and packaging of agricultural produce before sale by the formars have not been popularised by these market committees on a sufficient scale.

E - CHOUPAL

     The e-choupal, the first private sector initiative in agricultural marketing is a business platform consisting of a set of organisational sub-systems and interfaces connecting formers to global markets.
» The e-choupal business platform consists of three layers.
» Each of the three layers is characterised by three key elements.
  i) The infrastructure (Physical or organisational) through which transactions take place.

  ii) The entity (person or organisation) orchestrating the transactions

  iii) The geographical coverage of the layer.
 

TRIFED

    The government established TRIFED (Tribal co-operative Marketing Development Federation of India Ltd.) in 1987 August.
» The basic aim of TRIFED was to save tribals from exploitation by private traders and to offer them remunerative prices for their minor forest produce and surplus agriculture products.
» TRIFED started functioning in 1988, April.
» TRIFED plays the role of an agent of FCI for government purchase of wheat and rice.
» It is also an agent of agriculture and co-operation department of the government for purchase of cereals, pulses and oil-seeds.

NAFED

     NAFED (National Agricultural co-operative Marketing Federation of India Ltd.) has been established in the co-operative sector at the national level for marketing of agriculture products.

AGRICULTURAL CREDIT

     Three types of loans are provided to Indian formers to meet their financial requirements
    i) Short - term loans
    ii) Medium - term loans
    iii) Long - term loans
Short - term loans:
    Short term loans are provided for a period of less than 15 months to meet out expenses of routine farming and domestic consumptions.
» This type of loan is demanded by farmers for purchasing seeds, fertilizers and for meeting out family requirements.
Medium - term Loans:
     Medium term loans are provided for a period of 15 months to 5 years to purchase agricultural equipment, animals and for land improvement.
Long - term Loans:
    Long term loans are provided for a period of more than 5 year.
» This type of loan is taken by the farmers to purchases land and expensive agricultural equipment and for repayment of old loans.
Sources of Agricultural Loans
    The Indian farmer can acquire the above types of loans from two sources.
i) Non-institutional sources like money lenders, landlords, big businessmen.
ii) Institutional source like commercial banks, co-operative banks and governments sources.

NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY MISSION (NFSM)

    The NFSM launched in 2007, is a crop development scheme of the government of India that aims at additional production of 10, 8 and 2 million tonnes of rice, wheat and pulses respectively by the end of 2011 - 12.
» The mission interventions consist of
      i) Seeds of improved variety
      ii) Soil ameliorants
      iii) Plant nutrients
      iv) Farm machines/ implements
      v) Plant protection measures
» In addition, a special initiative under the name of the accelerated pulses production programme was initiated in 2010 to boost the production of pulses by active promotion of technologies in 1,000 clusters of 1,000 hectare each.

RASHTRIYA KRISHI VIKAS YOJANA (RKVY)

     The RKVY was launched in 2007 - 08 for incentivising states to enhance public investment to achieve 4 percent growth rate in agriculture and allied sectors during the Eleventh plan.
The sub - schemes include
   i) Bring Green Revolution to eastern region
   ii) Integrated development of 60,000 pulses villages in rainfed areas
   iii) Promotion of oil palm
   iv) Initiative on vegetable clusters
   v) Nutri-cereals
   vi) National Mission for Protein supplements 
   vii) Accelerated Fodder Development Programme
   viii) Rainfed Area Development programme
    ix) Saffron Mission

NATIONAL HORTICULTURE MISSION (NHM)

   The Horticulture sector includes a wide range of crops such as fruits, vegetables, roots and rubber crops, flowers, aromatic and medicinal plants, species and plantation crops, which facilitate diversification in agriculture.
» The NHM scheme was launched during the Tenth plan for holistic development of the horticulture sector, duly ensuring forward and backward linkages by adopting a cluster approach, with the active participation of all stakeholder.
» A major initiative has been taken during 2011 - 12 for enhancing the supply of food quality vegetables to metro cities under the Vegetable Initiative in Urban Clusters (VIUC)

NATIONALAGRICULTURAL POLICY - 2000

    The union government has announced the new National Agriculture Policy in the parliament on july 28th, 2000.
» This policy has been planned under the provisions of the world trade organisation so as to face the challenges of the agriculture sector.

The salient feature of this policy are
i) 4% growth rate p.a. for next two decades.
ii) 4% growth rate p.a target tobe achieved by 2005.
iii) Land reforms to provide land to poor farmers.
iv) Consolidation of holding in all states of the nation.
v) Promoting private investments in agriculture.
vi) Provide insurance umberalla for crops to formers.
vii) Promote bio - technology.
viii) Promoting research for developing new varieties of crops and ensuring protection to the developed varieties.

AGRICULTURAL INSURANCE

There are various major crop insurance schemes under implementation in the country.
i) National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) the NAIS is a government sponsored central - sector crop insurance scheme being implemented in the country since 1999 - 2000 season.
ii) Modified NAIS (MNAIS) with the aim of further improving crop insurance schemes.

Some of the major improvements made in the MNAIS are
a) Actuarial premium with subsidy in premium at different rates
b) All claims liability to be on the insurer
c) Unit area of insurance reduced to village panchayat level for major crops
d) Indemnity for prevented/ sowing/ planting risk and for post - harvest losses due to cyclone
e) On account payment up to 25 percent advance of likely claims as immediate relief
f) More proficient basis for calculation of threshold yield
g) Allowing private sector insure with adequate infrastructure.
iii) Pilot Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (WBCIS) being implemented as a central-sector scheme from kharif 2007 season.
» The scheme is intended to provide protection to farmers against advance weather incidence.
iv) Krish Shramik Suraksha Yojna
» The multi-benefit scheme for the agricultural worker's commenced on july 1st, 2001, provides life insurance protection, lump sum survival benefit and pension to those who are between the age of 18 - 50 years.

v) Form income insurance scheme
      The scheme commenced in january 2004 for providing insurance safeguards and economic security to farmers.
» Run by the ministry of agriculture and indian agriculture insurance company Ltd jointly.
a) Provides 'broader risk insurance'.
b) Conceived to provide income protection to the farmers by integrating the mechanism of insuring production as well as market risks.
c) Farmers income is protected by ensuring minimum guaranteed income.
d) Subsidy in premium payment.
e) Available for all the states and compulsory for farmers availing crop loans.
vi) Varsha bima (Rainfall Insurance Scheme)
     Introduced in 2004 south-west monsoon period-covers all natural rainfall risks and provides five different options suiting varied requirements of the forming community.
a) Seasonal rainfall insurance based on aggregated rain fall from June to September
b) Sowing failure insurance based on rain fall between June and August.

c) Rainfall distribution insurance with the weightage assigned to different weeks between June and September.
d) Agronomic Index constructed on the basis of water requirements of crops.
e) A catastrophe option covering extremely adverse deviation of 50 percent and above in rainfall during the season. The scheme covers all natural Rainfall risks at the following stages.
» Failure of speed crop either in full or in parts due to natural risks.
» Loss in expected raw speed yield.
» Loss of seed crop after harvest.
» At seed Certification stage.

NATIONAL MISSION FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE (NMSA)

      The NMSA, Launched in 2011 - 12, aims at enhancing food security and protection of resources such as land, water, biodiversty and genetic resources by developing strategies to make Indian agriculture more resilient to climate change.
i) Indian agriculture, with two third rainfed area remains vulnerable to various vagaries of monsoon.
ii) Climate change will aggrative these risks and may considerably affect food security.
    a) Potential adaptation strategies to deal with the adverse impacts of climate change.
    b) Developing cultivars tolerant to heat, moisture and salinity stresses. 

   c) Modifying crop management practices. 

d) Adopting new farm practices such as resource-conserving technologies.
e) Crop diversification, improving pest management.
f) Making available timely weather-based advisories.
g) Crop insurance and harnessing the indigenous technical knowledge of farmers.

​​
SECOND GREEN REVOLUTION

    Use of all eco-friendly means in cultivation is the Second Green Revolution (SGR) or Evergreen Revolution or Sustainable Agriculture.
» It include the agricultural practices such as
i) Replacing chemical fertilisers by bio-fertilisers
ii) In place of chemical pesticides using bio-pesticides
iii) Conserving water, balanced cropping pattern proper crop combinations etc.
    Such agricultural practices are popular in developed economies as organic farming.
Impact Second Green Revolution
     The Second Green Revolution has every prospect of revolutionising the agriculture sector of India with multidimensional positive impact on agriculture in particular and the economy in general. 

i) This will provide India physical access to food.
ii) Every Indian will have economic access to food because of increase in production.
iii) India will also be able to make its agriculture sector ecologically safe.
» The achievement of ecological access will become possible
iv) The surplus agricultural produce will enter the world market and agriculture sector will be able to tap the benefits of globalisation.
v) It will create gainful employment sources in the agriculture sector on which more than 58 percent of the population depend for it's livelihood.
vi) It will eliminate hunger and malnutrition from India.
vii) India won't be an example of market failure.
» It's Market will succeed by increasing the purchasing capacity of the population.
viii) Living standard of the population will improve and development has to show up. Thus, India's rank on the Human Development Index (HDI) will improve for sure.

Second Green Revolution Strategy adopted in the Eleventh Plan
The following strategies to raise agricultural output
i) Doubling the rate of growth of irrigated area.
ii) Improving water management, rain water harvesting and watershed development.
iii) Reclaiming degraded land and focusing on soil quality.
iv) Bridging the knowledge gap through effective extension.
v) Diversifying into high value outputs, fruits, vegetables, flowers, herbs and spices, medicinal plants, bamboo, bio-diesel, but with adequate measure to ensure food security.
vi) Promoting animal husbandry and fishery.
vii) Providing easy access to credit at affordable rates.
viii) Improving the incentive structure and functioning of markets.
ix) Refocusing on land reforms issues.

WTO AND THE INDIAN AGRICULTURE

Prospects and Challenges
  With the operationalisation of the provisions of the World Trade Organisation (WTO),
» The process of globalisation commenced in the major parts of the world.

» The non-member countries in the coming few years, also started negotiating for entry into the club.
» Had the agriculture of the leading and politically vocal developing economies not be of subsistence level.
» The course of the world would have been completely different.
» It is the biggest hurdle in the process of globalisation and he success of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
The Prospects
     According to the joint document, the WTO provision were supposed to have the following positive impacts on the world trade.
   i) By 2005 there will be an addition of 745 billion in the world merchandise trade.
   ii) The GATT Secretariat provided a full breakup of the above projected trade increase in the following way
a) The clothing sector to have a share of 60 percent.
b) The Agricultural, forestry and fisheries products to have a share of 20 percent.
c) The processed food, beverages and drinks to have a share of 19 percent.

The challenges:
» The first category of challenges pertains to the area of relavent preparations, investment and restructuring of agriculture.
» The second category of challenges are nothing less than a revision in the very agricultural provisions of the WTO itself (around which today revolves the success and failure of the organisation itself).
The challenges before the Indian Agriculture
     i) self-sufficiency of food
     ii) price stability
     iii) cropping pattern
     iv) weaker sections
     v) WTO commitments

NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY ACT

      The National Food Security Act was enacted by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution of end December 2013.
Major highlights of the programme are as given below
i) It will cover upto 75 percent rural and 50 percent urban population with uniform entitlement of 5 kg food grains per month at highly subsidised prices of Rs.3, Rs.2 and Rs.1 per kg for rice, wheat and coares grains, respectively.
» The poorest of poor households continue to receive 35 kg food grain per household per month under the Antyodaya Anna Yojna at the same subsidised prices.
ii) It provision for special focus on nutritional support to women and children pregnant women and lactating mothers, beside being entitled to nutritious meals as per the prescribed nutritional norms will also received maternity benefit of atleast of Rs.6,000.
» Children in the age group of 6 months to 14 years will be entitled to take home rotation or hot cooked food as per prescribed nutritional norms.

iii) Eldest woman of eighteen years of age or above will be head of the household for issue of Ration Card and if not available, the eldest male member is to be the head of the household.
iv) For effective implementation, the Act also contains provisions for reforms in PDS though doorstep delivery of food grains, applications of information and Communication Technology (ICT) including end-to-end computerisation, 'Everaging Aadhaar' for identification of beneficiaries, diversification of commodities under TPDS, etc.
v) The act provisions state and district level redressal mechanism with designated officer.
vi) Provisions have also been made for disclosure of records relating to PDS, social audits and setting up of vigilance committee in order to ensure transparency and accountability.