GS Paper III 2024 · Q4
10 marks · 150 words Farm subsidies, MSP, PDS & food security X-Ray · Core #8Explain the role of millets for ensuring health and nutritional security in India.
Approach · directive: “explain”
What it asks · Explain how millets improve health and nutrition outcomes and why they matter for food security, adding the policy push behind them.
It asks 2 things — answer each
- Explain the role of millets in health: their nutritional and dietary benefits
- Explain their role in nutritional security: resilient supply, reach through public programmes, a state model, and the constraints to overcome
Open with · Data and event: India is the largest producer and second-largest exporter of 'Shree Anna' (Budget 2023-24), and on its proposal the UN declared 2023 the International Year of Millets.
Cover
- Nutrition: fibre, protein and micronutrients — ragi for calcium, bajra for iron — against hidden hunger.
- Health: low glycaemic index and gluten-free, useful against diabetes and obesity.
- Climate resilience: grown in dry western and southern India (NCERT) on marginal rain-fed land with little water or fertiliser.
- Reach: inclusion in PDS, ICDS and PM POSHAN; India is the largest producer and second-largest exporter of 'Shree Anna' (Budget 2023-24).
- State model: Odisha Millets Mission (2017) raised production and consumption among tribal communities.
- Constraints: low yields, anti-nutrients, shelf life, weak demand and thin procurement.
- Way forward: IIMR Hyderabad as Centre of Excellence (Budget 2023-24), procurement, processing, demand creation.
Close with · With IIMR Hyderabad as the Centre of Excellence (Budget 2023-24), assured procurement and processing can move millets from symbolic promotion to everyday plates and towards SDG 2 (Zero Hunger).
Add value (verified)
- At India's proposal, the UN General Assembly declared 2023 the International Year of Millets.FAO — International Year of Millets 2023 ↗“The United Nations General Assembly at its 75th session in March 2021 declared 2023 the International Year of Millets (IYM 2023).”
- Budget Speech 2023-24 (para 21): India is the largest producer and second-largest exporter of 'Shree Anna'; it grows jowar, ragi, bajra, kuttu, ramdana, kangni, kutki, kodo, cheena and sama.Union Budget 2023-24, Budget Speech of the Finance Minister, 1 February 2023, 'Global Hub for Millets: Shree Anna' (para 21) ↗“We are the largest producer and second largest exporter of ‘Shree Anna’ in the world. We grow several types of 'Shree Anna' such as jowar, ragi, bajra, kuttu, ramdana, kangni, kutki, kodo, cheena, and sama.”
- Budget Speech 2023-24 (para 22): the Indian Institute of Millet Research, Hyderabad, to be supported as the Centre of Excellence to make India a global hub for Shree Anna.Union Budget 2023-24, Budget Speech, para 22 ↗“Now to make India a global hub for 'Shree Anna', the Indian Institute of Millet Research, Hyderabad will be supported as the Centre of Excellence for sharing best practices, research and technologies at the international level.”
- Odisha Millets Mission (Special Programme for Promotion of Millets in Tribal Areas) started in 2017 to raise millet production and consumption for nutritional security, especially among indigenous communities.Ideas for India (IGIDR research portal): Odisha Millets Mission — an update at the end of IYM 2023 ↗“Special Programme for Promotion of Millets in Tribal Areas, or Odisha Millets Mission (OMM) started in 2017 to address nutritional security in Odisha through increased millet production and consumption, especially for the indigenous (and often vulnerable) communities.”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2024, GS Paper III — paper ↗. Approach: Minimalist IAS, checked 3 Oct 2026 (how we verify) — UPSC publishes no model answers. ·
Model answer· 230words · Minimalist IAS
India is the largest producer and second-largest exporter of 'Shree Anna' (Budget 2023-24), and on its proposal the UN declared 2023 the International Year of Millets. These hardy dryland grains answer both undernutrition and lifestyle disease.
Role of millets in health
- Nutrient density: fibre, protein and micronutrients — ragi for calcium, bajra for iron — counter the hidden hunger behind anaemia and stunting.
- Lifestyle disease: a low glycaemic index and no gluten help against diabetes and obesity, now coexisting with undernutrition.
Role of millets in nutritional security
- Climate-resilient supply: grown in the dry parts of western and southern India (NCERT) with little water or fertiliser, they stabilise output as the climate warms.
- Reach through programmes: inclusion in the PDS, ICDS and PM POSHAN carries nutrition to the poorest.
- State model: the Odisha Millets Mission (2017), per Ideas for India (an academic portal), aims to raise millet production and consumption, especially among tribal communities, with processing machinery.
- Livelihoods: small and tribal dryland farmers earn from a crop that also feeds them.
Millets for nutritional security: Nutrient density; Climate resilience; Dryland livelihoods; PDS and POSHAN reach
Constraints
- Supply side: low yields, anti-nutrients and short shelf life needing processing, weak demand and thin procurement.
With IIMR Hyderabad as the Centre of Excellence (Budget 2023-24), assured procurement and processing can move millets from symbolic promotion to everyday plates, and towards SDG 2 (Zero Hunger).
Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 3 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.
