Paper Details

Hunger and malnutrition are not caused by a lack of food in the nation rather, due to low purchasing power people are not able to purchase proper food or in other words due to poverty. Therefore, providing food and nutrition security ought to be a top priority for a nation like India, where it is estimated that more than one-third of the population is living below the poverty line and one-half of all children are malnourished in some or another way. Rajasthan, India's largest state has a sizable population of Scheduled Castes and Tribes in rural areas, many of whom continue to struggle with food insecurity. Therefore, The government for realizing the objectives of food security has implemented many policies and programs which directly or indirectly helps in ensuring food security including the program namely ICDS which has an objective to enhance the nutritional intake of children. Rajasthan is still classified as one of the states, which is socially and economically backward because of its relatively lower position in economic and human development indicators. With the better picture of food availability, access and utilization of food, still the low nutritional intake due to lower economic access and improper utilization of food shows persistence of under nutrition status and problem of food insecurity among rural poor people in the state. Therefore, the present study is concerned with analyzing and reviewing the progress and performance level of ICDS for ensuring food security in Rajasthan based on secondary data.

ICDS, Malnutrition, Food Security, Food Availability, Access, Utilization.