MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 47 of 100

Correct — option (1), "Statement (a) is correct." Statement (a) is true, and it is true in more than one way. Women's empowerment is written into the National Food Security Act, 2013 as a design feature rather than as an incidental benefit. The clearest instance is the provision on ration cards: the Act directs that the eldest woman of the household, being eighteen years of age or above, shall be the head of the household for the purpose of issue of the ration card, with a male becoming the head only where no such woman is available. That single clause transfers control of the household's food entitlement to a woman by default. Alongside it, the Act's chapter on women and children creates an individual maternity entitlement — free meals during pregnancy and six months after childbirth, and a maternity benefit of not less than six thousand rupees — which is a cash entitlement running to the woman herself. Empowerment through the ration card and empowerment through the maternity benefit together make statement (a) unambiguously correct. Statement (b) is false, and it fails on one word out of three. The Act does provide for a State Food Commission, and the Commission is indeed a monitoring and reviewing body — the section constituting it says so in terms, requiring every State Government to notify a State Food Commission for the purpose of monitoring and review of the implementation of the Act. Its functions run along those lines: monitor and evaluate implementation, advise the State Government, inquire into violations of entitlements, hear appeals against orders of the District Grievance Redressal Officer, and prepare annual reports for the State Legislature. What it is not is an implementing authority. Implementation is the business of the State Government and its Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection machinery — the department, the collectorate, the taluka supply officers and the fair price shops. A watchdog that also executed the scheme it watches would be reviewing its own work, which is exactly the arrangement the Act avoids. Statement (b) therefore overstates the Commission's role and is incorrect. One statement standing and one falling, and it is the first that stands, so option (1) is the credited answer. Note also the shape of the option set. With two statements there are four possible verdicts, and all four are printed: (a) alone, (b) alone, neither, both. There is no structural shortcut on a question built this way — you cannot narrow the field by eliminating a combination, because every combination is offered. Both statements have to be judged on their merits, and the mark turns on noticing that a single verb has been smuggled into statement (b).

• (2)Statement (b) is correct. — Option (2) accepts the description of the State Food Commission as a monitoring, reviewing AND implementing authority, and simultaneously rejects the women's empowerment feature. Both moves are wrong. The Commission is constituted for monitoring and review, not for execution — implementation rests with the State Government's food and civil supplies administration. And the empowerment feature is on the face of the Act, in the direction that the eldest adult woman be treated as head of household for the ration card.
• (3)Statements (a) and (b) both are incorrect. — Option (3) is a double negative that fails on its first limb. Statement (a) is plainly correct: the Act makes the eldest woman aged eighteen or above the head of the household for issue of the ration card, and grants pregnant women and lactating mothers a maternity benefit of not less than six thousand rupees. A candidate who marks 'both incorrect' has usually spotted the flaw in statement (b) and then assumed, on the strength of finding one error, that the question is a trap in which nothing is true.
• (4)Statements (a) and (b) both are correct. — Option (4) is the natural error, because statement (b) is right about the Commission's existence and right about two of the three functions it names. The word that breaks it is 'implementing'. The State Food Commission monitors, reviews, advises, inquires into violations and hears appeals from the District Grievance Redressal Officer; it does not implement the Act. Compound descriptions of a statutory body are a favourite falsification device — the examiner adds one function the statute does not confer and leaves everything else accurate.

The National Food Security Act, 2013 converted food subsidy from a scheme into a legal entitlement. Its core is a right to receive foodgrain at subsidised prices from the Public Distribution System: priority households are entitled to five kilograms of foodgrain per person per month, while Antyodaya Anna Yojana households continue to receive thirty-five kilograms per household per month, at the highly subsidised issue prices the Act specifies for rice, wheat and coarse grains. Coverage extends to up to seventy-five per cent of the rural population and up to fifty per cent of the urban population, which works out to roughly two-thirds of the country. Beyond the grain entitlement, the Act creates nutritional entitlements for women and children: an age-appropriate free meal for children between six months and six years through the anganwadi system, a free mid-day meal for children up to class VIII, and free meals plus the maternity benefit for pregnant women and lactating mothers. It also builds in an accountability architecture — an internal grievance redressal mechanism, a District Grievance Redressal Officer, and a State Food Commission above them — together with transparency obligations such as public disclosure of records and social audits.

The distinction the question turns on — between the body that runs a statute and the body that watches it — recurs across Indian legislation, and MPSC tests it repeatedly. Under the National Food Security Act the executive chain is the State Government's Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Department down through the district and taluka supply administration to the fair price shop, while the oversight chain is the internal grievance mechanism, then the District Grievance Redressal Officer, then the State Food Commission, whose annual report goes to the State Legislature. A candidate who has that two-column picture in mind reads statement (b) and sees at once that a function from the left column has been slipped into a description of a body from the right. The same test is applied to the National Human Rights Commission, to consumer commissions and to information commissions — bodies that inquire, recommend and hear appeals but do not administer the underlying subject. The Act itself came into force with retrospective effect from 5 July 2013, having received the President's assent on 10 September 2013.

• The National Food Security Act, 2013 directs that the eldest woman of the household, aged eighteen years or above, shall be the head of the household for the purpose of issue of the ration card; a male becomes head only where no such woman is available.
• The Act's women and children chapter provides free meals for pregnant women and lactating mothers during pregnancy and for six months after childbirth, together with a maternity benefit of not less than ₹6,000, and free age-appropriate meals for children through the anganwadi and mid-day meal systems.
• The State Food Commission is constituted by every State Government for the purpose of monitoring and review of implementation of the Act. It monitors and evaluates, advises the State Government, inquires into violations of entitlements, hears appeals against orders of the District Grievance Redressal Officer, and reports annually to the State Legislature — it does not implement the Act.
• Entitlements: five kilograms of foodgrain per person per month for priority households and thirty-five kilograms per household per month for Antyodaya Anna Yojana households, at the subsidised issue prices specified in the Act.
• Coverage extends to 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 Act received the President's assent on 10 September 2013 and was brought into force with effect from 5 July 2013.

• Reading a description of a statutory body that is accurate in two respects and wrong in a third. Adding one function the statute does not confer — here 'implementing' — is the commonest falsification device for questions on commissions and authorities.
• Assuming that a body which hears appeals therefore administers the scheme. The State Food Commission adjudicates and reviews; the State Government's food and civil supplies machinery executes.
• Overlooking that women's empowerment in this Act is statutory and specific — head of household for the ration card, and an individual maternity benefit — rather than a general policy aspiration.
• Treating 'both incorrect' as the safe answer once one flaw has been found. Each statement must be judged separately; finding an error in one says nothing about the other.

Food security is asked in three shapes. The first is entitlement recall — quantities per person or per household, issue prices, and the rural and urban coverage percentages. The second, which this question belongs to, is institutional: what the State Food Commission does, who the District Grievance Redressal Officer is, who is head of the household for a ration card. The third is contemporary, drawn from the Economic Survey or from current schemes — PMGKAY, One Nation One Ration Card, Aadhaar-based biometric authentication. The institutional questions are the most reliably scored, because the statute does not change from year to year and because their falsification devices are so consistent: a wrong number, a wrong authority, or an extra function attached to the right body.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

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

  • (a)The eldest male member of the household
  • (b)The eldest woman of the household aged eighteen years or above
  • (c)The member with the highest recorded income
  • (d)Any adult member nominated by the household

  Answer(b) The eldest woman of the household aged eighteen years or above. The Act makes this the default, with the eldest male becoming head only where no adult woman is available in the household. It is the Act's most concrete women's empowerment provision, because it places control of the household's food entitlement in a woman's hands as a matter of statutory right rather than family choice.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The body constituted by a State Government under the National Food Security Act, 2013 to hear appeals against orders of the District Grievance Redressal Officer is the :

  • (a)State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission
  • (b)State Food Commission
  • (c)State Vigilance Committee
  • (d)State Food and Civil Supplies Department

  Answer(b) State Food Commission. It is constituted for monitoring and review of the Act's implementation and among its functions is hearing appeals against orders of the District Grievance Redressal Officer, besides advising the State Government and reporting annually to the State Legislature. The Food and Civil Supplies Department is the implementing arm and is therefore the body whose work the Commission reviews, not an appellate authority over it.