Towards greater food security for India's poor: balancing government intervention and private competition

To achieve its strategic objective of food security, the Government of Indi a (GOI) maintains an elaborate set of food grain policies which include pub lic procurement and price support operations, price stabilisation through b uffer stocks, public food grain distribution, and extensive controls on pri vate trade. We use aggregate and household level evidence to show that this system is costly, generates inefficiencies in the food grain marketing sys tem (for both the public and the. private sector), and often offers few, if any, benefits to its intended beneficiaries, the poor. On this basis we pr opose an integrated reform agenda involving improvements in the targeting o f the public distribution system, creation of an enabling environment for i ncreased private participation in food grain markets and greater incentives for efficiency by the Food Corporation of India (FCI). (C) 2001 Elsevier S cience B.V. All rights reserved.