The severe food insecurity gripping Orissa for decades has scaled new heights this year, thanks to an abnormal rise in prices of food items coupled with a devastating flood affecting 60 percent of the districts. The need for direct government intervention has become all the more urgent as inflated prices fuelled the monthly food expenses by over 44 percent as a result of which, a labourer household working for 120 days at the prevailing wage rates could hardly meet the food expenses for only four months. Even the NREGS providing 100 days of employment at the rate Rs 52.5 a day can at best play a supplementary role. A Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) study very well comprehended the enormity of the situation by estimating that on an average, nine per cent of Orissa