The Impacts of Reforms to the Public Distribution System in India’s Chhattisgarh on Food Security

Although a rapidly growing developing country, India has a larger food-insecure population than all of Sub-Saharan Africa. Given the prevalence of chronic malnutrition, the Government of India spent nearly 1 percent of the gross domestic product in the past year on the Public Distribution System (PDS), its system of subsidies for food grains and other essential commodities. Despite the importance of effective food aid in the country, a large share of PDS food grains do not reach their intended beneficiaries. However, the Indian State of Chhattisgarh instituted a number of PDS reforms in the early and mid-2000s in an effort to improve the distribution of PDS food grains. We find that both PDS consumption and food security improved in response to the reforms.