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Economic Highlights
New Delhi, 26 July 2013
Hungry India
NOBODY’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT
By Shivaji Sarkar
Hunger is a reality in modern
India.
It cannot be wished away. No food is available, as some leaders say, for Rs 5
in Delhi or Rs
12 in Mumbai or as the Planning Commission fixes the level of urban poverty at Rs
33. These are mere important figures for the “enlightened” bureaucracy,
“expert” economists and nitpicking politicians of the ruling party.
The number of hungry today
exceeds the population of the Indian sub-continent at the time of its partition,
which was 34 crore. Even if we accept the revised Planning Commission’s
controversial figures at 21.9 per cent of the population, in absolute terms it
would be 28 crore poor. There are other figures of the Plan panel itself that
put number of poor at 37.5 per cent – 45 crore poor.
If we accept the World Bank
figures, above 80 crore people live on less than $1 a day or to quote late
Arjun Sengupta about 77 per cent live on less than Rs 20 a day. The World Bank
estimates put the poverty percentage at 29.8 per cent – 37 crore - against the Government’s
21.9 per cent.
The World Food Programme
(WFP) is more candid. It says India
is home to about 25 per cent of the world’s hungry poor. Although the country
grows enough food for its people, WFP says pockets of hunger remain. It quotes Government
figures to stress that around 43 per cent of children under the age of five
years are malnourished and more than half of all pregnant women aged between 15
and 49 suffer from anaemia. In absolute terms the figures are staggering.
Then again, the country has
a mid-day meal programme. However, see what it did in Bihar
-- claimed lives of 23 children. Many others have fallen seriously ill across
the country. The scheme was introduced to allure hungry children to the portals
of schools. It has increased attendance in schools, at least during meal time. But
it’s a different issue whether it has improved educational standards or
nutritional conditions or not.
Remember, tweaking of
figures by Planning Commission helps the Government project better image at international
fora. The UN or other global organisations are guided by official figures, and India appears
to be doing better in achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG). However,
the figures only help window-dress the reality.
Incidents of mid-day meals
capture the reality. The quality of food grain, pulses, edible oil or utensils
used only raise one basic question – why should parents send their children to
have food cooked in such unhygienic conditions. The answer is not difficult to
seek. They cannot afford to feed them even once a day!
Rising inflation – almost
36 per cent in a little over three years – keeps the hands and mouths of the
poorer consumers away from food. More the country has indulged in the politics
of food, more go hungry. Malnutrition increases. Officially, Government subsidy
increases and so does the pilferage and wastage at Government warehouses of
Food Corporation of India (FCI). It hoards more than the norms set at 18
million tonnes.
The government
organisations hoard more food grain than it can store. Semi-rotten food is sold
to breweries officially at highly subsidised rates. In 2012, organisational apathy of Punjab Agro
Foodgrains Corporation and lack of storage space has resulted in the loss of
more than two lakh sacks of wheat, which was offered for sale to breweries.
It
is said that after the great famine of 1943, officially there has not been its
recurrence. But the food mismanagement has caused immense miseries. Officially,
there is never a death due to starvation. It is a different story that
innumerable people die of malnutrition across the country. Officially, it means
they “had food” but not in the required quantity. It helps governments, both
States and Central, keep their records “clean”.
That
is the greatest hypocrisy. It also appears strange why the ruling political
parties accept the bureaucratic explanations on malnourishment, while it is
actually starvation. Much of the woes of the Indian economy are due to the
apathy of political leaders once they get into the seat of power. Protecting
the bureaucracy, creating innumerable immunities for them, becomes the religion
of the ruling political clan, irrespective of their shades – so-called
rightists, leftists, regionalists or centrists.
Poverty
has become the biggest vote gainer. In Tamil Nadu or Chhattisgarh or Uttar
Pradesh, populist promises of cheap food grain, free TV, sari or laptop buy
votes. Why? The vast majority cannot afford either of these. It raises another
question. Are we deliberately keeping the people poor so that a few can become
rich quick? Or are we so inefficient that we cannot manage our economy?
Possibly
this is the only nation that allows food grain hoarding and betting on it so
that some large houses could maximize their profits. The bureaucrat helps them
for obvious reasons and so do the politicians. It helps the latter gain large
funds for their parties. This is the summary of the UN report on India’s rising
food prices. The UN has wondered why should there be betting on food at a time
when half of the country’s not only the poor even the so-called middle class
failed to procure two square meals.
The very price system that
generates a massive supply keeps the hands – and the mouths – of the poorer
consumers away from food, says noted economist Amartya Sen. India has the
unenviable combination of having the worst of under-nourishment in the world
and the largest of unused food stocks on the globe.
The nation has also
mastered the art of mismanaging supposedly some of the well-intentioned
programmes such as the mid-day meal schemes. Rather it has diverted the energy
of teachers, who are now made to spend more time in managing the kitchen than
classrooms.
The
country has officially avoided famine. But kitchens at school feed over 11
crore children, according to Ministry of Human Resource Development, on a
permanent basis. It reveals that this nation has at least 11 crore families, in
reality many more, who cannot afford even one meal a day. No wonder hunger
remains the number one problem as the nation celebrates 67th
Independence Day in two weeks. Worse, the
country does not have a programme either to bring down the food prices or free
its people of hunger.---INFA
(Copyright, India
News and Feature Alliance)
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