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Food Insecurity in Vidarbha’s Cotton Belt Despite Ration Cards

Food Insecurity in Vidarbha’s Cotton Belt Despite Ration Cards
Food Insecurity in Vidarbha’s Cotton Belt Despite Ration Cards

Late one March in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region, a 23-year-old farm widow gave birth with one grim concern of how to feed another mouth. Her household’s supplies had dwindled to a few kilograms of grain and a handful of lentils and garlic.


For weeks, the family survived on bhakri (millet flatbread) with watery chutney as their only meal of the day. Scenes like this are playing out across Vidarbha’s cotton belt, where seasonal farm labourers and marginal farmers struggle with hunger even as India’s Public Distribution System promises subsidised food.


During the lean summer months when work is scarce, many working poor in these villages are forced to skip meals despite holding ration cards or being legally entitled to rations.


Millions Left Out of the Ration Card Net


India’s National Food Security Act aims to cover about two thirds of the population with subsidised grain rations.


In practice, however, tens of millions of poor Indians remain outside this safety net. Recent analysis of labour and food department data revealed that roughly 80 million people nationwide do not have ration cards and thus receive no PDS food grains.

Independent estimates suggest the true number of needy individuals effectively denied food security is even higher, around 130 million citizens. These are people who, by poverty status, should be getting cheap rice or wheat each month but are not on any ration list.


A major reason for this gap is outdated population data and quotas. The NFSA’s coverage was calculated using the 2011 Census, and government quotas for ration cards have barely changed since.


As a result, many families that qualify on paper have been unable to get a ration card because officials say the quotas are full. In one documented case, a domestic worker’s family applied for a ration card and was entitled to 25 kg of grain per month, yet received nothing because the state’s allotment was already filled. That family, with young children, often went without food for days, with the mother recalling spending much of her pregnancy on an empty stomach and surviving on charity meals.


Across India, many such casual labour households find themselves in similar situations. Their names remain on waiting lists while daily meals depend on borrowing or skipping food altogether.


Migrant workers have been especially vulnerable to exclusion from the PDS. Until recently, ration cards were not portable between states or districts. A construction worker or farm labourer who migrated away from his home village for work was effectively cut off from subsidised grain at the new location.


The card remained linked to the household back home. This meant millions of internal migrants who crossed state borders for work could not access rations where they lived and worked.


During the 2020 lockdown, stranded migrant families in cities found themselves without work and without access to ration shops, leading to widespread hunger among those technically entitled to food support.


The introduction of nationwide ration portability has improved access in some cases, but field reports indicate that many migrant and casual workers continue to face barriers. Documentation gaps, biometric authentication failures and lack of awareness have meant that ration entitlements remain uneven.


In Maharashtra, errors in identity linking have resulted in eligible households being denied grain or facing threats of ration card cancellation. These technical hurdles add to long standing administrative delays in updating ration lists for mobile and informal populations.


The combined effect is that a significant segment of India’s working poor remains functionally excluded from the PDS.

This includes daily wage earners, domestic workers, seasonal migrants and others with unstable housing or employment. Court interventions and administrative drives have sought to identify and enrol those left out, but progress has been uneven.


Government admissions that coverage cannot be expanded further without new population data have reinforced uncertainty. In the meantime, families at the margins continue to manage food shortages by reducing meals, borrowing grain or depending on community support.


Lean Seasons and Empty Stomachs in Vidarbha


These structural gaps become most visible during the agricultural off-season in rural regions like Vidarbha.


The region’s economy is dominated by cotton cultivation, a crop that generates income for only part of the year. Once harvesting ends, employment opportunities shrink sharply.

From April to June, thousands of labour-dependent households experience prolonged periods with little or no income. During these months, food consumption is often reduced to one meal a day.


Interviews from villages across the region reflect how fragile food access becomes. In Yavatmal district, a farm widow described going weeks without work while her ration supply ran out before the month ended. With two school going children, she borrowed money to buy grain and hoped it would last until the next opportunity for paid labour. Others described surviving on grain shared by neighbours or bought on credit.


A farm labourer explained that she spent her last savings on wheat and rice and had no money left for vegetables or cooking oil. She described the fear of prolonged hunger if the situation continued. Even households that receive rations of grain consistently struggle during lean months.


The standard PDS allotment provides basic calories but does not account for household size fluctuations, nutritional needs or prolonged unemployment.


Surveys conducted during recent years show that many women in rural Maharashtra skipped meals despite receiving grain rations. Others reported reducing portion sizes and eliminating protein rich foods due to a lack of cash. The reliance on wheat and rice alone has led to monotonous diets that fill stomachs temporarily but fail to meet nutritional requirements.


In Vidarbha’s cotton belts, this issue is compounded by limited food cultivation for self-consumption.


Cotton dominates land use, leaving little scope for growing pulses or vegetables at the household level. When market prices rise or income stops, families depend almost entirely on ration shops. Field studies from districts like Wardha have shown that while the PDS prevents complete starvation, the quantity distributed is often insufficient to meet energy needs, especially for labour intensive households. Purchasing additional grain from the market is frequently not an option due to high prices.


As income dries up, coping strategies become harsher. Some households restrict food intake to one meal consisting of chapatis with salt or chutney. Others ration flour carefully to ensure that children can eat while adults eat less. Elderly residents often prioritise feeding younger family members, stretching minimal resources over weeks. These strategies recur every year, creating a predictable cycle of seasonal hunger.


Employment schemes intended to provide relief during off season months have had a limited impact. Access to wage work remains irregular, and payments are often delayed. When alternative employment fails to materialise, migration becomes the only option for many men.


However, migration itself disrupts food access when ration cards remain tied to villages. Women, children and elderly relatives left behind then rely on reduced rations and informal support networks to survive.

Food insecurity among the working poor in Vidarbha is not the result of sudden shocks alone but of predictable seasonal and administrative failures that repeat year after year.


The ration system provides partial support but leaves large gaps for migrant and casual labour households whose lives do not fit neatly into fixed administrative categories. During lean months, the limits of this system become visible in empty kitchens and reduced meals across cotton growing villages.


These households continue to navigate hunger through borrowing, skipping meals and relying on neighbours.


Their experiences show how access to paper does not always translate into food on the plate, especially for those living at the margins of rural labour economies.

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The NewsDirt is a trusted source for authentic, ground-level journalism, highlighting the daily struggles, public issues, history, and local stories from Vidarbha’s cities, towns, and villages. Committed to amplifying voices often ignored by mainstream media, we bring you reliable, factual, and impactful reporting from Vidarbha’s grassroots.

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