India's census delay is denying millions subsidised foodgrains

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09-05-2025

The Census is now four years overdue, and the budget for the exercise has been slashed indicating further delays. This is even as millions of Indians are left without access to subsidised foodgrain, pushing them to the brink of food insecurity. Evidence shows that entitlements under the Public Distribution System have prevented about 1.8 million children from being stunted.
Yet, the government now provides subsidised foodgrain under the National Food Security Act to 806 million people, lower by 8.1 million than even its own estimate. Under the National Food Security Act, 75% of the rural population and up to 50% of urban population receive rations. When asked whether millions of people were being left out, the government told Parliament that any revision in coverage 'shall be possible only after the relevant data of [the] next population Census is published'.
Despite the extensive coverage, between 2021-'23 there was a prevalence of undernourishment in 14% of the population or 194 million people in India, according to the The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 report. An October 2024 analysis by economist Reetika Khera said that in spite of the improvement in coverage, the Union government was falling short of the coverage mandated by the National Food Security Act.
On April 30, the government announced that it would enumerate caste during the population Census, but did not say when it would be conducted. The earliest the decennial population Census–based on which various welfare entitlements and surveys are estimated – is expected to be held in 2026, according to news reports. This would be five years after the expected timeline for publication.
IndiaSpend had reported that in 1881, the colonial administration conducted the first synchronous census, in which work began on the same date across the country, a practice which then continued every 10 years, until the Covid-19 pandemic. But, based on the latest government response in parliament, the Census has not been declared, making India one of the few countries to not conduct a population Census following pandemic-related disruptions.
IndiaSpend had reported that nearly 100 million people are estimated to be excluded from the public distribution system. According to the projections of the National Commission on Population, a little over 920 million persons would have to be covered in 2025 for urban and rural areas compared to around 800 million based on the 2011 population census, said economist Jean Drèze. 'Thus, more than 120 million may be regarded as unfairly excluded due to the Census delay.'
Undernourishment despite PDS coverage
Presently, 806 million people are covered under the National Food Security Act delivered through the public distribution system for which more than Rs 8,700 crore was released to states in 2023-'24. The public distribution system is operated jointly by state and Union governments and is a vital social programme for food economy and security. The National Food Security Act states that eligible households have to be determined based on the latest available Census.
Although there is extensive free grain distribution, which is required for many households, there is still a problem of undernutrition and malnourishment, said development economist Dipa Sinha. Also, there are a large number of people who do not get PDS, she added.
'The additional numbers could be additional members in households who already have a card, and households which do not have a card at all. Amount of grain received depends on the number of members listed,' said Sinha. 'The government is not using population projection data, but literally interpreting the NFSA provision to consider only Census 2011 population which is now old data.'
From January 2024, the government decided to extend the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana for five years and announced that the National Food Security Act households – poorest of the poor (Antyodaya Anna Yojana or AAY) and Priority households – would receive free food grains instead of subsided.
But this effectively reduces the quantity available to priority households in the public distribution system by half, IndiaSpend had reported in December 2023. The government has allocated Rs 2.03 lakh crore for 2025, 1% lower than last year's budget allocation but 3% more than the revised estimate.
But in April, a World Bank analysis said that extreme poverty (living on less than $2.15 per day) fell from 16.2% in 2011-'12 to 2.3% in 2022-'23, during which time 171 million people were lifted out of poverty. The five most populous states – Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh – accounted for 65% of India's extreme poor in 2011-'12 and contributed to two-thirds of the overall decline in extreme poverty by 2022-'23, it said.
Given the persistence of poverty at the time of identification, these states also account for more than half the public distribution system beneficiaries. But the World Bank analysis, which uses household consumption expenditure surveys from 2011 and 2022, cautions that 'sampling and data limitations suggest that consumption inequality may be underestimated'.
Following the release of the analysis, the Union government's April 2025 press release stated that there was 'remarkable progress in poverty reduction over the past decade', and the rise in employment, especially among women, and the reduction in multidimensional poverty point to broader improvements in living standards.
In addition to the decennial census, six critical government datasets are delayed, and nine Union ministries have not released their annual reports – some of them for several years, IndiaSpend had reported in December 2024.
'Previously, in 2020, it was estimated 100 million people were left out due to delayed Census, which has increased to over 120 million now. There is also no clarity on the urban-rural proportion considering in the last decade we have seen demonetisation and the pandemic which has impacted migration patterns etc.,' said Sinha. '....All other surveys depend on population Census for its sampling.'
The budget for the Census, Survey and Statistics/Registrar General of India was slashed by more than 50% in 2025 indicating that the government did not intend to begin the census this year.
'The PDS is still very important for the purpose of protecting everyone from hunger and insecurity,' said Drèze. 'However, it is only one of a range of measures that are required to ensure good nutrition.' Avoiding undernourishment also requires clean water, health care, sanitation facilities, childcare services and related amenities, not to forget purchasing power and action against gender inequality.
Food entitlements and malnutrition
A 2024 study estimates that public distribution system expansions from the National Food Security Act prevented approximately 1.8 million children under the age of five from being stunted.
India's performance in the Global Hunger Index has been concerning over the years. The index – which calculates the score using undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting, and child mortality – ranked India 105 out of 127 countries in 2024 better than 111 of 125 countries in 2023. The Union government has repeatedly raised concerns about the 'flawed measures' used to ascertain hunger in the report which have led to India's low ranking. (You can find the government's response in parliament on the hunger index from different years here, here and here.)
The 2024 paper by researchers Aditya Shrinivas, Kathy Baylis, Benjamin Crost showed that public distribution system transfers through extended coverage of the National Food Security Act also improved diversity of diets and incomes. 'The magnitude of the increase in wage earnings was more than the amount of the transfer itself, and may partly explain the large effects of food transfers on stunting in our context,' it said.
In the absence of a nationally representative consumption survey between 2010 and 2022, the study used panel data from eight states – the best available data for evaluating the National Food Security Act – with monthly consumption data spanning three years before and two years after NFSA, said Shrinivas, Assistant Professor of Economics at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and lead author of the study.
'I find that when more PDS is given at a lower price, despite it being restricted mostly to rice and wheat, the money that households save is redirected to consume more food, particularly animal protein and improving dietary diversity.'
Despite the government's One Nation One Ration Card initiative to make interstate ration access particularly for migrants easier, it has not seen enough uptick except in Delhi, IndiaSpend had reported in July 2023.
Instead of having urban and rural quotas for inclusion, there could be a universalisation with some exclusion criteria, feels Sinha. 'This removes the rich and provides food security to the rest, which is easier than identifying poor households that need to be included. This helps in urban areas particularly where there is a transitory population that may not have documents to access PDS despite being long time residents.'
IndiaSpend has written to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Registrar General & Census Commissioner of India on the impact of the delay, the estimate of PDS exclusion, and the timeline for the announcement and publication of the population Census. We will update the story when we receive a response.
Food security effects
The fifth National Family Health Survey conducted during 2019-'21 showed that more than one in three children under age five were stunted. This means, millions of children who would otherwise have received access to foodgrain if the Census was conducted are now left without food security, potentially leading to lifelong adverse outcomes.
'Stunting [where a child is short for his/her age] is a proxy for overall cognitive and physical underdevelopment,' according to a September 2017 report by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as IndiaSpend reported in January 2018. 'Stunted children will be less healthy and productive for the rest of their lives, and countries with high rates of stunting will be less prosperous.'
Adults who were stunted at age two spent nearly one year less in school than non-stunted individuals, according to this study conducted by University of Atlanta in 2010, as IndiaSpend reported in July 2016.
Similarly, a study of Guatemalan adults found that those stunted as children had less schooling, lower test performances, lower household per capita expenditure and a greater likelihood of being poor. For women, stunting in early life was associated with a lower age at first birth and more pregnancies and children, according to this 2008 World Bank study.
A 1% loss in adult height due to childhood stunting is associated with a 1.4% loss in economic productivity, according to World Bank estimates. Stunted children earn 20% less as adults compared to non-stunted individuals, we had reported.
Further, experts say that early childhood malnutrition increases the risk of developing non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and heart disease in adult life, as IndiaSpend reported in October 2019.