Food security of a nation is ensured if all of its citizens have enough nutritious food available, all persons have the capacity to buy food of acceptable quality and there is no barrier on access to food.
The people living below the poverty line might be food insecure all the time while better off people might also turn food insecure due to calamity or disaster. Although a large section of people suffer from food and nutrition insecurity in India, the worst affected groups are landless or land poor households in rural areas and people employed in ill paid occupations and casual labourers engaged in seasonal activities in the urban areas.
Seasonal hunger is related to cycles of food growing and harvesting. This is common in rural areas because of the seasonal nature of agricultural activities, and in urban areas because of the casual labour. This type of hunger exists when a person is unable to get work for the entire year. Chronic hunger is a consequence of inadequacy in terms of quantity or quality. Poor people suffer from chronic hunger because of their low income and in turn, inability to buy food even for survival.
To ensure availability of food to all sections of the society the Indian government carefully designed food security system, which is composed of two components: (a) buffer stock and (b) public distribution system. A buffer stock helps resolve the problem of shortage of food during adverse weather conditions or during periods of calamity.
In addition to PDS, various poverty alleviation programmes were also started which comprised a component of food security. Some of these programmes are: Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS); Food-for-Work (FFW); Mid-Day Meals; Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), etc. In addition to the role of the government in ensuring food security, there are various cooperatives and NGOs also working intensively towards this direction.