Day 33 – Q 2.It is an irony that despite having a huge buffer stock, one of the largest public distribution systems and excessive subsidisation, India performs poorly on the Global Hunger Index. Comment.

2. It is an irony that despite having a huge buffer stock, one of the largest public distribution systems and excessive subsidisation, India performs poorly on the Global Hunger Index. Comment. 

यह एक विडंबना है कि एक विशाल बफर स्टॉक, सबसे बड़ी सार्वजनिक वितरण प्रणाली और अत्यधिक सब्सिडी होने के बावजूद भारत का ग्लोबल हंगर इंडेक्स में खराब प्रदर्शन रहा है। टिप्पणी करें।

Introduction:

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool that measures and tracks hunger globally, by region, and by country. The GHI is calculated annually, and its results appear in a report issued in October each year.

Body

The GHI is based on four indicators:

• Undernourishment: the share of the population that is undernourished (insufficient caloric intake) 
• Child wasting: the share of children under the age of five who are wasted (low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition) 
• Child stunting: the share of children under the age of five who are stunted (low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition) 
• Child mortality: the mortality rate of children unde r the age of five (in part, a reflection of the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments).

The reason for mapping hunger is to ensure that the world achieves “Zero Hunger by 2030” — one of the Sustainable Development Goals laid out by the United Nations. It is for this reason that GHI scores are not calculated for certain high-income countries.

GHI 2019 puts India at 102 out of 117 countries. In 2018, India was 103 out of 132. In 2017, due to a change in methodology, 44 more countries had been included and India was at 100 out of 119. So while the rank is one better this year, in reality, India is not better off in comparison to the other countries. The GHI slots countries on a scale ranging from “low” hunger to “moderate”, “serious”, “alarming”, and “extremely alarming”. India is one of the 47 countries that have “serious” levels of hunger.

Why poor performance

• With an overall score of 30.3, India finds itself sandwiched between Niger (score 30.2, rank 101) and Sierra Leone (score 30.4, rank 103). In 2000, India’s score was 38.8 and its hunger level was in the “alarming” category. Since then, India has steadily improved on most counts to reduce its score and is now slotted in the “serious” category. But the pace of India’s improvement has been relatively slow.
• For one, notwithstanding the broader improvements, there is one category — Child Wasting, that is, children with low weight for their height — where India has worsened. In other words, the percentage of children under the age of 5 years suffering from wasting has gone up from 16.5 in 2010 to 20.8 now. Wasting is indicative of acute undernutrition and India is the worst among all countries on this parameter.
• The report also took note of open defecation in India as an impacting factor for health. It pointed out that as of 2015–2016, 90% of Indian households used an improved drinking water source while 39% of households had no sanitation facilities.
  • Open defecation jeopardizes the population’s health and severely impacts children’s growth and their ability to absorb nutrients.
• Around 90 per cent of children aged between 6 and 23 months in the country don’t even get minimum required food.
• When it comes to stunting in children under five, India saw a dip, but it’s still high — 37.9 per cent in 2019 from 42 per cent in 2010.
• One of the main reason is the lack of awareness among rural population about nutritional intake.

Conclusion

Though India has demonstrated an improvement in other indicators that includes, under-5 mortality rate, prevalence of stunting among children, and prevalence of undernourishment owing to inadequate food. The National Food Security Act, 2013, aims to achieve the objective of food security by providing affordable food grains to families living below the poverty line. In this way, the government seeks to achieve food security. The intent of the statute is laudable, but it still doesn’t take the fuller picture of nutritional challenge into account. Malnutrition is the reason behind 69% of deaths of children in India. The situation is serious and calls for policy changes. Food security, in a complete sense, is the need of the hour. Unless a radical shift in policy approach doesn’t come through, we will continue to stare at embarrassing statistical graphs and indices.