According to the NSS 66th Round Report titled: Perceived Adequacy of Food Consumption in Indian Households July 2009-June 2010 (published in February, 2013), MoSPI, GoI, http://mospi.nic.in/Mospi_New/upload/nss_report_547.pdf:
• The report is based on information collected during 2009-10 from 100794 households in 7428 villages and 5263 urban blocks spread over the entire country.
TRENDS IN PERCEIVED ADEQUACY OF FOOD, 1993-94 TO 2009-10
• The all-India percentage of households reporting getting two square meals every day throughout the year has gradually increased over the last 16 years from 94.5% to about 99% in rural India and from about 98% to 99.6% in urban India. The gap between the rural and urban percentages has narrowed appreciably.
• The proportion of rural households reporting not getting two square meals every day in any month of the year has dropped from 0.9% to 0.2% in rural India between 1993-94 and 2009-10, while the corresponding proportion of urban households has dropped from 0.5% to 0.0%.
• The proportion of rural households reporting not getting two square meals every day in some months of the year has fallen from 4.2% to 0.9% in rural India and from 1.1% to 0.3% in urban India over the 16-year period.
INTER-STATE VARIATION
• In rural India the percentage of households not perceiving themselves as getting adequate food throughout the year was 2.1% or less in all major States except West Bengal (4.6%) and Odisha (4.0%). In these two States, about 3.8-3.9% rural households reported that they did not get adequate food every day in some months.
• 1.2% of rural households in Assam, 1.1% in Bihar, and 1.0% in Chhattisgarh reported not getting adequate food every day in some months.
• As many as 0.8% of rural households in Bihar and 0.6% in West Bengal reported that they did not get enough food every day in any month of the year.
• In urban India the percentage of households not perceiving themselves as getting adequate food throughout the year was less than 1.3% in all major States except Madhya Pradesh, where it was 2.5%.
• In urban India the percentage of households reporting that they did not get enough food every day in any month of the year was 0.1% or less in every major State except Odisha. In Odisha, 0.6% of urban households belonged to this category, while 0.5% felt that they did not get enough food every day in some months.
VARIATION ACROSS HOUSEHOLD TYPES AND SOCIAL GROUPS
• Among different household types in rural India, the percentage of households perceiving themselves as not getting enough food every day throughout the year was 1.1% or less for all household types except agricultural labour households. Among agricultural labour households, 1.9% reported not getting enough food every day in some months and 0.2% reported not getting enough food every day in any month of the year.
• Among rural agricultural labour households the percentage reporting insufficient food in some months was as high as 12% in Manipur, 10% in Odisha, 6.3% in West Bengal, and 6% in Tripura.
• In the rural sector, the percentage of households reporting adequate food intake in only some months of the year was 1.8% for Scheduled Tribes, 1.3% for Scheduled Castes, 0.4% for Other Backward Classes and 0.9% for Others.
• In the urban sector the Scheduled Castes had a noticeably higher percentage of households reporting adequate food intake in only some months of the year than the rest (0.8% compared to 0.2-0.3% for all other groups).
MONTHS OF FOOD INADEQUACY
• Perceived food inadequacy was most common in the months of January and February for West Bengal and Odisha, February and March for Assam, and March for Chhattisgarh.
• Among households reporting food inadequacy in some months of the year, the most commonly reported number of scarcity months was ‘2’. This was followed by ‘3’. More than 4 months of food scarcity were reported by very few households.
