National Food Security Act, 2013

Walk past a municipal school in Mumbai at lunchtime and you will see children lining up for a hot meal, while a few streets away a ration shop hands out rice and wheat against a card. Both are government schemes, but before 2013 a hungry family could only ask for them as a favour. The National Food Security Act turned them into legal entitlements with a complaint officer attached. This topic also carries the syllabus sub-point on child labour, because a child who works for food is a child who is not in school.

In two minutes

The National Food Security Act, 2013 makes subsidised foodgrains, meals for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children, and a food security allowance legal entitlements, enforced through District Grievance Redressal Officers and State Food Commissions; the syllabus adds child labour under Article 24 and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986.

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