Omkar Dattatray
There is the strange paradox of hunger amid surplus and plenty. India is facing this dilemma from last so many decades and it is of great concern to us all. While we have huge surplus of food grains in our go downs but we fail to provide food to a very large number of our population and it is a national shame and disgrace. While food stuffs are rotting in our stores, the large number of our population is facing hunger and malnutrition and this is the dichotomy and the government should take planned steps to arrest this trend so that no one should experience hunger and die of hunger. But very less has been done to fight hunger and malnutrition. India has excelled in different fields and dying has ventured into the space as well and is lagging behind in hunger index. Very less has been done at the governmental level to address hunger and malnutrition. It is the question of priorities as the rulers give priority to economic growth and brush aside hunger under the glitter and glare of economic development. The 20i9 Global Hunger Index GHI has ranked India 102nd among 117 countries, placing it in a category with serious levels of hunger. Even the UNICEF report on the state of Worlds children lists India with highest burden of death among children below five years, accounting for 8.82 lakh children dying last year. 90 percent children in the age group of6 to 23 months do not get enough to eat. Every second child is stunted, wasted or underweight. With abundant food supplies, there is no reason why India should be harboring the largest population of hungry in the world.
Inspite of huge food grains, India's hunger ranking is in fact much worse than the neighboring countries. China records an impressive standing at 25th position, India lags behind all BRICS countries and its performance leaves much to be done when compared with Sri Lanka66,Nepal 73,Bangladesh88, and Pakistan94.Since GHI report was first released in 2006 and 14 reports later, nothing has changed in India. Hunger defies the predominant economic prescription which believes that high growth will help reduce the population living in hunger.
But as economy grew so did the hunger and malnutrition.
The former PM Manmohan singh calling hunger and the deaths due to it as national shame. Earlier PM's have called for fighting hunger but it remained robustly sustainable.
Removing hunger is a difficult job and quite a lot has been done and achieved in addressing child malnutrition, but the gigantic task to make hunger history is impossible.
In spite of the historical National Food Security Act 2013, which provides for subsidized grains to two-thirds of the population and number of programs to fight malnutrition, eradicating hunger and malnutrition does not seem to be our macro-economic policy. According to economists any move to increase subsidy will result in increase in fiscal deficit and is un-economical. This is in sharp contrast to a programme initiated by Brazilian president, Lula da Silva in 2003 to remove extreme poverty and hunger. Brazil's zero hunger programme had successfully linked food production with hunger eradication. This programme can be used in India with some modification. In India emphasis is given on increasing food production and surplus food is diverted to food deficit areas but farmers welfare is the least priority of the government. Revival of agriculture is necessary as 600million people are directly and indirectly engaged in agriculture. Public sector investment in agriculture should be increased. A lot of promises have been made to fight hunger in the last decades but a little effect has been seen on the ground. The fact is that an alarmingly high number of casualties – over 2400 children are succumbing to under-nutrition every day, categorized as burden of death. Good food production should be synchronized with developmental policies to fight hunger. In nutshell the present regime has a strong willpower and it can fight hunger to finish.
(The writer is a Retired Education Officer and Columnist)
