CDS (II) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 3 of 120

Correct — D, the claim that the Act is not being implemented in all the States and Union Territories. That is the statement which fails. The Department of Food and Public Distribution's own National Food Security Act portal states plainly that the Act is being implemented in all the States and Union Territories, with about 80 crore persons covered against a maximum coverage of 81.34 crore. Roll-out was staggered, State by State, but it was complete well before this paper was set. The other three statements stand. The Act was passed in 2013 and given effect from 5 July 2013; it entitles up to 75 per cent of the rural population and up to 50 per cent of the urban population to subsidised foodgrains under the Targeted Public Distribution System, which is the two-thirds of the population that the 67 per cent in the stem refers to.

• (a)The Act was enacted in the year 2013. — True. The National Food Security Act was passed in 2013 and takes effect from 5 July 2013, so this is a correct statement and cannot be the answer to a not-correct stem.
• (b)The Act was rolled out in the year 2014. — The paper treats this as correct. Strictly the Act came into force on 5 July 2013 and States adopted it in stages up to November 2016, so 2014 describes the middle of the roll-out rather than a single start date — but it is not the plainly false statement that the stem is asking for.
• (c)The Act legally entitles 67 percent of the population to receive highly subsidised food grains. — True in substance. The statutory limits are up to 75 per cent of the rural and up to 50 per cent of the urban population, which the Government's own summary describes as about two-thirds of the population.

The National Food Security Act, 2013 converted food support from a welfare scheme into a legal entitlement. Priority households receive 5 kg of foodgrain per person per month and Antyodaya Anna Yojana households 35 kg per household per month, at Rs 3, Rs 2 and Re 1 a kilogram for rice, wheat and coarse grains. The Act also carries a life-cycle approach: nutritional support for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children between six months and fourteen years through anganwadis and school meals, and a maternity benefit. For the purpose of the ration card, the eldest woman of the household aged eighteen or above is the head of the household.

This is a not-correct stem, so the work is to find the single false claim rather than to defend the true ones. Three of the four are things a careful reader would recognise from any summary of the Act — the year, the roll-out and the coverage. The fourth makes a factual claim about implementation, and it is the kind of claim that is easy to check against the Government's own portal. A candidate who is unsure about whether the two-thirds figure is exactly 67 per cent can still get there by asking which statement is falsifiable and false. It is worth being honest that option (b) is loose: the Act's own commencement date is 5 July 2013 and the last States came on board only in November 2016, so no single year is a clean answer for 'rolled out'. The paper does not treat that looseness as the error.

• The Act entitles up to 75 per cent of the rural population and up to 50 per cent of the urban population — about two-thirds of the country.
• The Department of Food and Public Distribution states that the Act is being implemented in all the States and Union Territories, covering about 80 crore persons.
• Priority households get 5 kg per person per month; Antyodaya Anna Yojana households get 35 kg per household per month.
• The eldest woman aged eighteen or above is the head of the household for issuing the ration card.
• One Nation One Ration Card, which lets a beneficiary draw the entitlement from any fair price shop in the country, was built on top of this Act rather than by a new law.

• Reading the 75 and 50 per cent limits as separate national figures rather than as rural and urban shares that together come to about two-thirds.
• Thinking that coverage is confined to households below the poverty line. The Act uses priority and Antyodaya categories, not the poverty line.
• Assuming a staggered roll-out means incomplete implementation. Staggered starts finished; coverage did not stay partial.

Either as a statements item on the Act's entitlements and coverage, or as a not-correct item of exactly this shape testing year, coverage and implementation.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the National Food Security Act, 2013, who is to be treated as the head of the household for the purpose of issuing a ration card?

  • (a)The eldest male member of the household
  • (b)The eldest woman of the household who is not less than eighteen years of age
  • (c)The member with the highest declared income
  • (d)Any adult member nominated by the gram panchayat

  Answer(b) The eldest woman of the household who is not less than eighteen years of age — the Act makes this mandatory, as a step towards women's empowerment.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The monthly entitlement of a priority household under the National Food Security Act, 2013 is which one of the following?

  • (a)35 kg of foodgrain per household
  • (b)5 kg of foodgrain per person
  • (c)10 kg of foodgrain per person
  • (d)25 kg of foodgrain per household

  Answer(b) 5 kg of foodgrain per person — the 35 kg per household figure belongs to Antyodaya Anna Yojana households, not to priority households.