Universal Food Security Program and Nutritional Intake: Evidence from the Hunger Prone KBK Districts in Odisha
Published By: IGIDR on eSS | Published Date: June, 01 , 2015This article provides evidence on the role of consumer food subsidies in improving nutritional intake
and diet quality by evaluating the expansion of the government food assistance program coverage in the
hunger prone state of Odisha in India. In 8 districts of Odisha, popularly known as the
Kalahandi-Balangir-Koraput (KBK) region which is notable for extreme poverty and starvation deaths,
the government did away with the targeted food assistance program in 2008 and made the scheme
universal. Using a Difference-in-Difference methodology over two repeated cross sectional household
surveys, this article finds that the shift from targeted to a universal food security program in the KBK
region of Odisha has led to an improvement in the household nutritional intake and diet quality.
Author(s): Andaleeb Rahman | Posted on: Jun 05, 2015 | Views() | Download (558)