Nagaland has been ranked fourth among the special category states/UTs in the first ‘State Ranking Index’ for the National Food Security Act (NFSA).
Odisha was adjudged the top ranked State followed by Uttar Pradesh at the 2nd spot and Andhra Pradesh at third amongst the General Category States.
Among the Special Category states/UTs, Tripura stood first followed by Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Nagaland respectively.
Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Piyush Goyal, released the 1st edition of ‘State Ranking Index for NFSA’ during the conference of Food Ministers of States/UTs on ‘Food Nutrition and Security in India’ organized by Department of Food and Public Distribution in New Delhi on Tuesday. The “State ranking Index for NFSA” attempts to document the status and progress of implementation of NFSA and various reform initiatives across the country, post consultation with states.
It highlights the reforms undertaken by States and UTs and create a cross-learning environment and scale-up reform measures by all states and union territories.
The present Index is largely focused on NFSA Distribution and will include procurement, PMGKAY Distribution in future.
The Index for ranking the states and UTs is built on three key pillars which covers the end-to-end implementation of NFSA through TPDS. The pillars include i) NFSA— Coverage, targeting and provisions of the Act, ii) Delivery platform, and iii) Nutrition initiatives.
NFSA was enacted on July 5, 2013 and in order to celebrate the day, the conference was organized to deliberate and discuss nutritional security, food security, best practices followed in Public Distribution System, crop diversification, reforms in PDS and storage sector.
Speaking on the occasion, Union minister Goyal said that India is now 100% connected under One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC). He complemented PM Modi for visualizing this pathbreaking initiative and all those associated with it. He said that 45 crore transitions have taken so far providing the beneficiaries the freedom to collect ration from any State/UT in the country. He said that during COVID, ONORC supported migrants.
