8th Right to Food Campaign Convention Declaration
Jul 01, 2025By Right to Food Campaign
The 8th Right to Food Campaign Convention was held on 24 – 26 May 2025 at Ambedkar Memorial Welfare Society, Jaipur (Rajasthan). The theme of this convention was “Securing Right to Food, Strengthening Democracy.” (It) brought together over a thousand participants from 16 states across the country. The gathering served as a powerful platform for collective reflection and resistance, as individuals and organizations came together to assess the status of food security amidst growing authoritarianism. Participants deliberated on the weakening of democratic institutions, the erosion of accountability mechanisms, and the increasing marginalization of the poor and vulnerable. The discussions reaffirmed the fundamental link between an assured right to food and a vibrant, participatory democracy, emphasizing that food security is not merely a matter of policy, but a cornerstone of justice, dignity, and democratic governance.
The Right to Food Campaign takes cognizance of the continuing genocide of Gaza, the erosion of democratic values across the world, including in the United States and Europe, and the replacement of a rules-based world with one based on might is right. We unequivocally condemn all violence and call to an end to cessations of all hostilities including in Gaza, Palestine and especially closer home in South Asia.
The Right to Food Campaign calls for the intensification of the struggles against growing inequality, sectarianism, and consolidation of far-right forces both in the political and societal spheres in India and across the world.
Over the three days, plenaries and parallel sessions were held that discussed various nutrition programmes, challenges in securing food by vulnerable groups, shrinking control over means of production, labour rights and codes, and deliberations on the way forward.
The key resolutions adopted during the convention are as follows:
1. Universalize the Public Distribution System and expand the food basket to include a variety of millets, dal, oil and sugar. Remove digital technology induced measures such as e-KYC and Aadhaar linking from ration cards that lead to exclusions.
2. Children’s Right to Food and Nutrition:
a. ICDS and Creche service (Palna scheme) should not function as schemes but be established as a universal and comprehensive law for children under 6 years, which includes elements of health, education, nutrition, care and protection. The law must also include norms on infrastructure (such as water, toilets, kitchen, play spaces), food, workers’ rights and social audits etc.
b. Extend Mid-day meals to all school children, up to 12th standard.
c. Junk and processed food must carry warning labels and advertisements targeting children on such foods be prohibited.
d. Bal panchayats which currently work with the objective of protection of children, should have a wider ambit which includes holistic development and nutrition of children under 6 years and pregnant and lactating women. Alongside, recommendation should be made to finance commission to make schemes for local production and procurement of food for Anganwadis and Mid-day meal scheme and that should be handed over to the gram panchayats. Maternity entitlement must be universal and unconditional, adjusted to inflation and cover at least nine months at prevalent minimum wages.
e. There should be an amendment in the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act (CLPRA) which should prohibit children below 18 years of age from working.
3. There must be proper and effective implementation of grievance redressal mechanisms and adequate resources for institutions responsible for this implementation.
4. Provide pensionable secure employment for all frontline workers in public programmes, including appropriate equipment and training.
5. Cash transfers must not be seen as a substitute for existing in-kind entitlements such as the Public Distribution System (PDS), Mid-Day Meals (MDM), and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).
6. Ensure continuance of all offline alternatives to online systems. Ensure that there are no exclusions rising from digitization.
7. All food entitlements must be comprehensively and universally portable and easily accessible for migrant workers. Universal portability would allow migrant families to claim their rightful entitlements wherever they reside or work, thereby addressing chronic exclusion and food insecurity faced by this vulnerable population. Strengthen and expand the portability of PDS under the One Nation One Ration Card scheme and ensure universal access to ICDS services, maternity entitlements and mid-day meals programme at destination. Ensuring ease of access and reducing bureaucratic hurdles are critical steps toward making food rights truly universal and inclusive.
8. Ensure all rights-based entitlements abide by the Constitutional principle of equality and be non-discriminatory vis-a-vis caste, religious minorities, gender and any other identity.
9. Ensure strict implementation of laws protecting Adivasis, create new employment opportunities, and protect their cultural identity. Legal provisions against the misdirection of the funds under the Development Action Plan for Schedule Tribes must be implemented.
10. Ensure full compliance of the RPWD Act, universalize disability pensions, and publish disaggregated data of children with disabilities in the NFHS for targeted interventions.
11. Ensure Constitutional Protection for Religious Minorities in the Face of Hate Speech, Violence, and Communalism — Along with Stringent Penalties forViolators. Accountability for public officials and law enforcement who fail to act against or are complicit in communal violence or discrimination, through disciplinary action or prosecution
12. There must be a comprehensive enumeration of DNTs and a clear pathway for their citizenship and access to basic services.
13. Provide ration cards based on self-declaration without any conditionalities for gender minorities. Sex workers should get identity cards and must be given maternity entitlements and benefits of all welfare schemes without conditionalities.
14. Ensure that every homeless person has access to shelter. There should be a comprehensive Right to Housing Law that guarantees adequate, accessible, and dignified shelter for every homeless person in India, with a special focus on women and children who are most vulnerable to exploitation, violence, and health risks due to homelessness.
15. Food security through Food Sovereignty:
a. Strengthen the decentralized procurement system without any genetic modification. Strictly implement laws that protect people’s control over resources and prevent their commodification.
b. Procure local, diverse, poison-free, GM free, nutritious, diverse food only grown with adequately proven and tested technologies in a decentralised manner with payment in a timely manner for PDS, MDM and ICDS and all other public schemes at MSP.
c. No acquisition or diversion of agricultural land, commons, forests, water bodies or any other natural resources which is a source of food for any non-agricultural purpose.
d. Repeal laws banning slaughter of animals and rethink laws and policies that are preventing farmers from protecting their crops from wild animals.
16. Immediately restart NREGA work in West Bengal. Ensure the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development. Increase the NREGA wage rate to Rs 800/day. Attendance based on NMMS should be abolished and any technological interventions in NREGA must be done in consultation with workers and campaigns such as NREGA Sangharsh Morcha. The union government must pay the compensation for stage-2 delays in wage payments.
17. Ensure the recognition of wage and social security rights for informal workers.Establish legal guarantees for the timely payment of minimum wages. Raise the minimum legal working age to 18 years. Formally acknowledge and protect the rights of domestic and gig economy workers.
18. Social security pensions should be universal, it should at least be half of the minimum wage and linked to inflation for annual increases. Cost of the pension scheme should be shared equally by the central and state governments.
19. Acknowledge the link between malnutrition, poverty, landlessness and occupational health problems (TB & Silicosis) and their increased prevalence due to displacement and dispossession of vulnerable communities in the name of development.
20. The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act in its current form should be withdrawn and no amendments should be made to the RTI Act to restrict our fundamental right.
Action Points
1. Start a campaign to demand universalization and expansion of the food basket in PDS.
2. Children’s Right to Food and Nutrition:
1. Make ICDS, including monitoring of Anganwadis, as a national agenda.
2. Drafting a policy paper to establish a comprehensive law for children under 6 years.
3. Initiating community-based management and social audit of Anganwadis.
4. Address caste-based and other social discriminations in schemes related to RTF.
5. Preparing a pamphlet on Anganwadi nutrition.
3. Conduct state-level public hearings on the Maternity Benefit programme in December, 2025, social audit in all states and culmination of the program in September in Delhi.
4. There must be a national campaign to demand effective implementation of the grievance redress mechanisms.
5. Network with unions of frontline workers and conduct a study to estimate additional payments due to frontline workers.
6. State-level campaign committees to monitor attempts to replace entitlements with cash transfer and build a nationwide movement to resist the same.
7. Draft a charter on campaigns’ stand on Digitization and alternatives for each process, work closely with Rethink Aadhaar (and similar campaigns) to develop resources and resolutions for Aadhaar based challenges.
8. Organize a two-day convention in Jaipur to draft a charter of demands for migrant workers; coordinate the ground-level mapping of migrant workers’ access to food and nutrition entitlements* across districts and states; conduct a national study on ONORC implementation; and file interim applications in the Supreme Court case seeking mandatory panchayat-level registration, a national migration database, social audits, and community kitchens in migrant-dense clusters.
9. Push to simplify the addition of new names to ration cards and monitor discrimination against Dalits, Adivasis, religious and gender minorities.
10. Strengthen movements against displacement and land acquisition against Adivasis, advocate to reopen closed schools in Adivasi areas, organize workshops to formulate legal frameworks for implementing TSP and conduct a national level public hearing on Adivasi issues.
11. Organize training and workshops to build an internal understanding of disability rights and entitlements, engage with State Disability Commissioners for grievance redressal and systemic advocacy, ensure representation of people with disabilities in decision making.
12. Ensure fraternity is at the core of all campaign work, form a committee to create and conduct workshops on fraternity and secularism for the campaign. Conduct trainings in schools and colleges with special focus on Dalits and Adivasis.
13. Strengthen the mobilization concerning the rights of DNTs, including documentation of ground realities and formation of a network to coordinate action against injustices faced by DNTs.
14. State campaigns to host workshops on sensitization of challenges of gender diverse people. Campaigns should also strengthen efforts to ensure gender diversity in their membership and activities. It should also advocate for the implementation of Transgender Protection Act.
15. Plan a national study about urban and rural homeless people (and families), include them in the next census, demand law for their right to housing.
16. Participate in farmers’ struggles, organizelocal meetings of Kisan Mazdoor Commission.
17. Revoke the NMMS attendance app, push non-BJP state governments to write the union government seeking alternatives. Campaign should join the joint call for hartal along with Sanyukt Kisan Morcha and Central Trade Unions. Do a national campaign on delayed NREGA payments, minimum wages.
18. Work towards the rights of workers, including spreading awareness of these rights
19. Social Security pensions should at least be half of the minimum wages, divided equally between union and state government. Do an annual pre-budget dharna in the capital.
20. Expand the food basket for vulnerable TB patients and their families for an extended period of 2 years, make a fourfold increase in cash transfers and develop offline pathways to register diagnosis and care of TB and silicosis patients without mandating Aadhaar.
21. We call for an immediate repeal of Section 44(3) of the DPDP Act which has amended the RTI Act, to exempt all personal information from disclosure. Similarly, the override clause in the DPDP Act must not override the RTI Act. We call for a nation-wide campaign to repeal Section 44(3). Submit petitions to elected representatives and plan a week of action for simultaneous campaigns across the country.
22. The Campaign to document cultural variations in food traditions and make people aware of their importance.
(Issued by the National Convenors of the Right to Food Campaign.)