Does converting welfare entitlements from household-based to per capita norms enhance equity or dilute the safety net for smaller vulnerable households? Discuss with reference to NFSA amendments.

Under the NFSA, 2013, Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) households receive a flat 35 kg foodgrain per month irrespective of family size, while Priority Households get 5 kg per person [3]. The draft National Food Security (Amendment) Bill, 2026 proposes 7 kg per person, capped at 35 kg per household [1]. The shift improves horizontal equity, but its welfare outcome depends on the safeguards attached.

How per capita norms enhance equity

• Corrects intra-AAY inequity: a flat quota gives a two-member family far more grain per head than an eight-member one; the draft Bill's stated aim is removing this size-linked distortion [1].
• Restores internal consistency with NFSA's own architecture, where Priority Households are already entitled on a per person basis [3].
• Aligns benefit with need, since large households — typically poorer in per capita terms — currently fall below the Priority norm despite being classed "poorest of the poor" [1].

How it can dilute the safety net

• Smaller households lose absolutely: a three-member AAY family drops from 35 kg to 21 kg, a real cut for the aged, widows and single-person households who dominate this category.
• Loss of a legal entitlement, not merely an administrative norm — the amendment alters the first proviso to Section 3(1), the operative guarantee of subsidised grain [1][3].
• Data risk: per capita calculation depends on accurate family size in ration records; stale PDS databases could mechanically shrink entitlements. States, which deliver NFSA through the PDS [4], have accordingly sought retention of the 35 kg floor.

Per capita norms are equitable in principle but regressive at the margin, since the smallest households are often the most vulnerable. A calibrated design — retaining 35 kg as a household floor rather than only a ceiling, with periodic verification of family size — would reconcile equity with adequacy, honouring the NFSA's promise of food security as a justiciable right for 75% of rural and 50% of urban India [2].