Human Right to Food and Nutrition in India: Role of the State

The study has attempted to understand the role of state in providing food and nutritional security to the people of country. The study has perceived four ways in which the state has to fulfill its obligations of food and nutritional security. These are respect, protect, facilitate and provide. According to the study, the state has not fulfilled first two obligations because it has neither addressed the decreasing per capita availability of foodgrains nor has checked the change of land from farm to non-farm sector. With regard to other two obligations, namely facilitate and provide, there are lacunae in the implementation of wage employment programmes like MGNREGA and PDS, resulting in no significant improvement in poverty levels of BPL households. The study has suggested that both central and state governments will have to be more proactive in fulfilling their obligations towards maintaining macro and micro level food and nutritional security.