摘要：Until recently, India followed a welfare based approach of distributing food grains to its low income group at an issue price, much lower than its market price or procurement price. In September 2013, the Government of India passed the National Food Security Act 2013 (NFSA, also called the Right to Food Act due to its rights based approach). The NFSA entails providing subsidized food grains to nearly 75% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population. The NFSA entitlement is 5 kg of food grains per person per month at issue prices of: 4.8¢ per kg of rice, 3.2¢ per kg of wheat, and 1.6¢ per kg of coarse grains (millets). This policy is regarded as the biggest experiment in the world to achieve food and nutritional security, thought it costs about $22 billion and requires 61.2 million tons of food grains in 2013-14. Though there are NFSA has some direct benefits it also has adverse economy wide implications. In addition to food security, India is also strengthening its energy security, with its National Policy on Biofuels which targets 20% blending of biofuels by 2017. In this study, we examine the economy wide implications of India’s NFSA within the context of global food vs. fuel security challenges, in a recursive dynamic general equilibrium framework.
