NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi on Monday asked the government to complete a population census at the earliest, claiming that around 14 crore people in the country are being deprived of the benefits under the food security law.In her maiden Zero Hour intervention in the Rajya Sabha, Gandhi said beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) are being identified as per the 2011 Census, and not the latest population numbers.The senior Congress leader called the NFSA introduced by the UPA government in September 2013 a landmark initiative aimed at ensuring food and nutritional security for the country’s 140 crore population.The legislation, Gandhi said, played a crucial role in protecting millions of vulnerable households from starvation, particularly during the Covid-19 crisis.She also said that the quota for the beneficiaries is still determined based on the 2011 Census, which is now well over a decade old.The National Food Security Act, 2013, provides for coverage of up to 75 per cent of the rural and up to 50 per cent of the urban population for receiving highly-subsidised foodgrains under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), which according to 2011 Census comes to about 81.35 crore.
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