An indifferent Modi government promises to eliminate hunger not before 2030.
Celebrations were barely over in New Delhi on the news that the 2017-18 agricultural year had yielded a record harvest of both foodgrains (284.83 million tonnes) and fruits and vegetables (307 million tonnes) when another bit of news trickled in last week, largely ignored by the government. This was that India stood at rank 103 in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) which covers 132 countries with rankings given to 119.
According to GHI calculations based on data collected by our government during 2015-17, 14.8% of the population in India was undernourished. That’s about 19.8 crore (198 million) people, a shocking figure.
The GHI is calculated by taking into account four indicators – wasting and stunting in under-5 children, mortality rates of under-5 children and undernourished population. With these, a fair picture of the country’s hunger levels, in terms of all essential nutrients including micro-nutrients, emerges.
But the worrying thing is this: despite a steady increase in food production, hunger prevalence in India remains at unconscionable levels. This indicates that there is a serious, fatal flaw in the way foodgrain is being distributed among the people. There are people getting more than necessary food and then there are others, running into millions, who are not getting sufficient food.
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