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Four more states and the Union territory of Lakshwadeep are expected to become part of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) before the expiry of the latest deadline in September. This would take the total number of states where the Food Act is applicable to 16, apart from the Union Territories (UT).
Officials said these process of digitisation of ration cards and end-to-end computerisation of the public distribution system (PDS) the two pre-requisites for getting into the NFSA fold is mostly complete in these states and UTs.
The Centre had for the third time extended the deadline for states to adopt the NFSA in March for six months starting from September. Under the NFSA, the Centre provides legal entitlement for cheap grains to almost 67 per cent of the Indian population.
