The National Food Security (Amendment) Bill, 2026 is a draft legislative proposal intended to amend the parent National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA), which legally entitles up to 75% of the rural and 50% of the urban population to subsidized foodgrains. The draft Bill was released by the Department of Food and Public Distribution on June 24, 2026, with the objective of removing "intra-category inequities" in foodgrain allocation for the poorest households.
The Bill proposes to amend Section 3 of the NFSA, 2013, specifically targeting the entitlement under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), which covers the "poorest of the poor". The problem it seeks to solve is the disparity created by the existing provision, which grants a fixed 35 kg of foodgrains per family per month to AAY households, regardless of family size. This meant smaller AAY households received a higher per-capita entitlement than larger ones, sometimes even higher than the entitlement for Priority Households (PHH), which receive 5 kg per person per month.
The key mechanism of the proposed amendment is to shift the AAY entitlement to a per-person basis. It proposes that every person belonging to an AAY household shall be entitled to 7 kg of foodgrains per person per month, subject to a maximum cap of 35 kg per household. This change replaces the fixed household-based entitlement with a per-person allocation, though the overall 35 kg cap for the household remains the same. The public consultation on the draft Bill is open until July 13, 2026.