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• Hunger Situation in India
• Key initiatives to fight Hunger Situation in India
• Causes for high Hunger Levels in India

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Hunger:

• Hunger is a situation when a person is not able to consume sufficient food to meet basic nutritional needs for a sustained period. The required number of calories may vary according to age, sex, physical activities etc.
• The UN mandated SDG-2 of ” ‘Zero Hunger’: ending hunger and ensuring access to nutritious and sufficient food for all” is supposed to be achieved by 2030.
  • This goal works in tandem with many others: Poverty Elimination (SDG1); Good Health and Well Being (SDG3); and the Need for Clean Drinking Water (SDG6).
• Similarly other SDG goals (SDG4 – Education; SDG5 – Gender Equality; SDG8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth; SDG10 – Reduction of Inequality; SDG11 – Sustainable Cities and
  Communities; SDG16 – Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions; and SDG17 – partnership for goals also influence consumption patterns and healthy diet choice.

Hunger Situation in India:

• Malnourishment is a major challenge faced by India, especially amongst children below the age of five.
  • As per NFHS-5, 32% of children were underweight; 35% are stunted and 19% are wasted.
• Global Hunger Index, 2022 has also ranked India 107/121 countries (worse than all our neighbours except Afghanistan (109)).
  • Though India has criticized GHI on several grounds, but still, it throws some light on the hunger levels in India.
    • GHI is using erroneous measure of hunger (i.e., it is measuring hunger in terms of other variables beyond the lack of food).
    • 3/4 variables are related to children and can’t be representative of whole
      population.
    • The data for undernourished population is based on a poll conducted on a very small size of 3,000.
    • GHI seems to have ignored initiatives like PMGKAY, Anganwadi Scheme, PMMVY
      etc.
  • As per a report by UNICEF: Child Food Poverty, 13 countries across the world (including India), more than 40% of children live in severe food poverty.

Key initiatives to fight Hunger Situation in India:

• NFSA 2013 and the Public Distribution System
• PMGKAY
• Poshan Abhiyan: Launched by MoW&CD in 2018 is focused on reducing stunting, undernutrition, and anemia (among young children, women and adolescent girls).
• Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme: Launched in 1975, the ICDS scheme offers a package of six services – Supplementary Nutrition; Pre-School non-formal education; Nutrition and Health Education; Immunization; Health Checkups; and Referral Services.
• Eat Right Movement: It’s an initiative by Food Standards and Safety Authority of India (FSSAI) for citizens to nudge them towards eating right.
• Various initiatives for Poverty Reduction; Health (like Mission Indradhanush); Employment; Environment Protection etc. also contribute to fighting hunger situation.

Other Measures over the years which have contributed to fight against Hunger:

• Green Revolution: It has turned India from a “Ship to mouth” economy to the largest exporter of rice in the world. It has allowed the successful implementation of PDS, PMGKAY etc.
• White Revolution: India has emerged as the largest producer of milk in the world.

Causes for high Hunger Levels in India:

• Hunger is a complex multidimensional problem.
• In a 2008 paper, Hunger in the Contemporary World, Amartya Sen enumerated the interdependence of food deprivation and hunger on multiple factors.
  • Low Income (Poverty) – Poverty leads to poor living conditions, less income, insufficient food which eventually leads to malnourishment and hunger.
  • Social Factors:
    • Gender Inequality:
      • Inter-Family food distribution rules: Patriarchy leads to girl child getting food at the last or lesser food.
      • Low female literacy and education: Lack of adequate knowledge amongst mothers regarding nutrition, breast-feeding, and parenting.
    • Economic Factors
      • Poor Employment
    • High Government spending in non-social sector
      • Huge Military expenditure (as India lives in a very vulnerable neighborhood)
• Other Factors include:
  • Poor Administration and Governance: Corruption; Faulty PDS system; Unidentified hunger (inclusion and exclusion errors due to wrong allocation of BPL cards);
  • Hidden Hunger: Several types of nutritional deficiencies are occurring due to poor diet, diseases, and failure to meet the needs of women during pregnancy and lactation period.
  • Economic and Health challenges associated with COVID-19.
    • COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbate child undernutrition in general and child wasting in particular.
  • Climate Change and weather extreme also pose big challenge to India’s food system and poverty alleviation targets.

Way Forward:

• Intensive Hunger Specific Initiatives:
  • Improve the implementation of NFSA by removing all kinds of exclusion errors.
  • In Post-Covid scenario, bring back and strengthen functional Anganwadis providing food and other services.
  • Mid-day meal scheme should restart with full vigour in schools.
  • Improving Implementation:
    • Social Audit
    • IT for better monitoring
• Focus on other associated issues like Water, Health, Sanitation, maternal and child health etc.
• Focus on dietary diversity -> Encouraging consumption of more diverse range of foods, particularly fruits, vegetables, and protein rich diets.
• Social Changes:
  • Addressing gender inequality
• Accelerated and Inclusive Economic Growth:
  • Women’s participation rate in labour force is around 30% currently, which needs to increase. Here focus on literacy, skill development would be important.
  • Look into the issues of Livelihood: Expand rural employment guarantee scheme.
  • Sustainable Agriculture: Investment, Research, and Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture.
• Reducing food wastage and losses
• Adaptation and Mitigation to climate change.