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Open Forum
New Delhi, 26 October 2022
Hunger & Poverty
GOVT MUST FACE REALITY
By Dhurjati Mukherjee
The Global Hunger Index, 2022 in its
17th edition ranked India 107 among 121 countries out of 136 nations.
India was accorded a dismal score of 29.1 out of 100, falling under ‘serious’
category and was placed behind Sri Lanka (66), Myanmar (71), Nepal (81) and
Bangladesh (84). Afghanistan was the only country behind India among SAARC
nations. The Modi government has rejected the report, but those in the field
find it distressing and question the government’s performance over the years.
Authors of the report primarily
refer to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2) that
endeavours to achieve ‘zero hunger’ by 2030. According to them, the report
attempts to “raise awareness and understanding of the struggle against hunger”.
The index score is computed using four broad indicators — undernourishment
(measure of the proportion of the population facing chronic deficiency of
dietary energy intake), child stunting (low height for age), child wasting (low
weight for height) and child mortality (death of a child under the age of
five).
A nation with a low score on the
index gets a higher ranking, and the higher the country’s score, the lower its
ranking. All the four indicators used in calculating global hunger are
recognised by the world community, including India, and used for measuring
progress towards the UN SDGs. In 2021, India ranked 101 out of 116 countries, and
a year before it was placed 94th.
The latest ranking is poor quite
justifiably as undernourishment and malnutrition are severe problems in the
country, while in matters of child wasting it’s possibly the worst in the
world. But the Ministry of Women and Child Development has said the report “is
not only disconnected from ground reality but also chooses to deliberately
ignore the food security efforts of the Central government especially during
the pandemic.” Besides, “Three out of the four indicators used for calculation
of the index are related to the health of children and cannot be representative
of the entire population.”
The report’s rejection can’t be said
to be judicious and acceptable globally. Some commentators have highlighted the
government’s flimsy objections and questioned the WHO’s criteria. But the criteria
is fixed by an international committee of experts from different countries across
the globe. It would be better for India to suggest modifications, rather than
discard the report.
According to Niti
Aayog, 25 percent of the population in India is poor. Every fourth
person of the total population of India is in poverty. However, the somewhat
encouraging news is reflected in the Multidimensional Poverty Index, 2022 which
found that as many as 415 million people exited poverty in India in 15 years
(2005-06 to 2019/2021) with the incidence of poverty showing a steep decline
from 55.1 percent to 16.4 percent. The UNDP was quick to add in the report the
challenge faced by India as it continued to have the largest number of poor
people worldwide at 228.9 million in 2020.
The prevalence of hunger is directly
related to the incidence of poverty in the country. Poverty in India is an
ever-present problem that has endured throughout the country’s history and
unfortunately it seems that it will continue to be a problem as long as income
inequality continues to exist and the percentage of the population living below
the poverty line remains so high. Although there are some schemes that have
been put in place to help alleviate poverty, there will always be those who
struggle due to lack of access to resources and opportunities.
People may also stay trapped in
poverty because it has become too risky to move up to better jobs; they often
do not have money to buy equipment and supplies, pay school fees for their
children or start small businesses such as shops. The scenario is quite grim in
the rural and backward areas. With a huge population and limited resources,
poverty alleviation in India has been a slow, yet persistent process.
Successive governments have tried to stem rural-urban migration through
pro-rural policies aimed at improving living conditions and employment
opportunities, but millions still live below their means.
It is worth mentioning here the
World Bank’s report, Poverty and Shared Prosperity (2022), which sheds light on
a historic increase in global poverty in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic
shock -- 71 million more people are likely living in extreme poverty, 11
percent higher than in 2019. The magnitude has been the largest in South Asia.
Between 23-56 million or 32-80 percent of the poor are estimated to be in
India, a feature consistent with the shock GDP contraction in the pandemic
year, the largest among the developing economies.
In 2021, according to the World
Bank, little progress was made to reverse the pandemic-induced increase in
global poverty to pre-Covid levels. Overall, these have been very uneven and
not strong enough growth in at least low and middle-income countries. Worse,
this restoration is not expected to be stalled this year, at least in India due
to high food and energy prices. Despite the RBI’s interventions, the increase
in food inflation has greatly affected the poorer sections, causing
unimaginable sufferings.
Deepening inequality, which is
reflected in the latest Oxfam report indicates the scale of the chasm. This
includes leakages in the public distribution system, agrarian distress and effects
of climate change are obviously the causes of poverty and hunger. Added to this
are the disruptions of the mid-day meal programme and the paltry sum allocated
to the scheme. The starvation deaths in Jharkhand and elsewhere may be
attributed to the bureaucracy’s propensity to ignore hunger deaths and not
evolve any solution to tackle the problem.
Thus, food insecurity remains an
alarming issue due to such entitlement failures in India. While the government
has rejected the findings of the Global Hunger Index as “unscientific”, we
cannot ignore the dismal ground realities. India faces an under nutrition
challenge that is not only large but worsening, more so after the pandemic. It
is time for the government to face up to these inconvenient truths and pursue
the means and mechanisms needed to improve the situation.
However, fast the economy grows,
poverty and hunger remain big challenges before the government. The need
therefore is to strengthen the social infrastructure of the country and focus
on villages in the rural and backward districts of the country. There is a need
to increase funding for poverty eradication and undernourishment programmes,
specially the zero hunger programmes by curtailing other expenses, however
necessary they may be.
India cannot move ahead when a
substantial portion of the population struggles for its livelihood, living in
poverty and squalor and doesn’t live a human existence. It should take the aim
of the GHI report i.e. to “raise awareness and understanding of the struggle
against hunger”, in the right spirit. Act it must and do so earnestly. ---INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature
Alliance)
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