Hunger and Poverty are the biggest challenges for good governance in India still today. Evaluate how far successive governments have progressed in dealing with these humongous problems. Suggest measures for improvement.

Progress against poverty

• Planning-era programmes — Integrated Rural Development, Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, and later Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar — treated poverty as a subsidy and self-employment problem; leakage was high, which the Tendulkar and earlier expert groups documented in consumption data.
• The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, turned wage work into a legal entitlement for rural households, which the World Bank and Indian evaluations link to a rural wage floor and distress migration control, even with delays in payment and incomplete social audit.
• The National Food Security Act, 2013, made a legal claim to subsidised grain for a large share of the population, building on the targeted PDS and on PUCL v. Union of India, where the Supreme Court treated hunger as an Article 21 issue.
• Housing (IAY then PMAY), rural roads (PMGSY), NRLM self-help groups, and Direct Benefit Transfer with Aadhaar reduced some duplication, though exclusion errors remain a governance failure of their own.
• Official poverty ratios under the Tendulkar method fell over the 2000s; the Rangarajan committee proposed a higher line and a larger poor population, which shows that “progress” depends on the line one uses, not only on scheme names.

Progress against hunger

• ICDS, the Mid-Day Meal Scheme (after the 2001 Court orders in the PUCL litigation), and the PDS cut starvation deaths of the 1960s–80s type in most States; that is real progress in famine prevention.
• Stunting, wasting and anaemia in NFHS rounds remain high; India still ranks poorly on global hunger indices, which means calorie access through cheap grain has moved faster than diet quality, sanitation and care.
• Antyodaya Anna Yojana and State extras (eggs, pulses, fortified food) show that the Union floor can be raised; implementation still varies by State capacity, which is a federal governance fact.
• The National Nutrition Mission (POSHAN Abhiyaan was approved in 2017) tries to join ICDS, health and sanitation; it is an admission that foodgrain schemes alone do not end hunger.

Why they remain a governance challenge

• Identification: SECC, older BPL lists, and NFSA coverage still leave out migrants, the urban homeless, and some tribal hamlets, while including better-off households in leaky rings.
• Nutrition is multi-sectoral: water, sanitation (Swachh Bharat), women’s anaemia, and child feeding sit in different ministries, so good governance is coordination, not one more scheme.
• Farm incomes, informal urban work, and inflation of pulses and milk can recreate hunger even when the poverty ratio on a past line looks better.

Measures for improvement

• Complete NFSA reforms: doorstep delivery, transparent FPS automation, and inclusion of the actual hungry (migrants, urban poor) rather than only a percentage ceiling.
• Pay MGNREGA on time, strengthen social audit under the Act, and expand urban wage or employment support for the informal poor.
• Shift from grain-heavy PDS toward a more diverse basket or DBT where markets work, without abandoning the food-security floor in deficit districts.
• Treat POSHAN, SBM, NRDWP and NHM as one child-outcome mission at district level, with a collector-level dashboard on stunting and anaemia.
• Raise women’s control of entitlements (ration cards, wages, land records), because intra-household hunger is a governance blind spot that household surveys undercount.