In 2017, India has slipped down three ranks to 100 among 119 nations in the Global Hunger Index (GHI), beating even Bangladesh and North Korea in the race to the bottom. India has been placed in the “severe” category of nations suffering hunger pangs. And this although India is among the world’s largest producers of food grains, fruits and vegetables (second largest), milk (largest producer), fish (second largest), egg and poultry meat, and meat from livestock (fifth largest).
One reason for this tragic paradox is not far to seek. It’s the government. Consider this: an 11-year-old Jharkhand girl reportedly died of starvation because she didn’t have an Aadhaar-linked ration card. News reports said she died in her mother’s lap asking for rice; three Dalit brothers in Gokarna district in Karnataka died of starvation. It was reported that they had been denied food rations for six months, but the district administration denied it. The news of these deaths came around the same time that Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in Gujarat, ahead of the elections there, that he had allowed purchase of jewellery upto Rs 2 lakh without having to furnish the Aadhaar number or the PAN card. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand alone, 11 lakh ration cards have been cancelled because they were not linked with Aadhaar numbers. Different rules for different people.
The Aadhaar Act makes it clear that that no one will be denied food if they don’t have an Aadhaar card. But to cut down on social spending as well as to curb corruption in the delivery mechanism, the government is in a visible hurry to link the ration cards with biometric authentication. At the same time, despite no encouraging response of the few case studies in implementing cash transfers, it is aggressively pushing Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) so that it can totally get away from the monumental task of providing food to the needy through the vast network of public distribution shops (PDS). With no responsibility to maintain a creaky PDS system, the government will also not have the responsibility of maintaining an effective system of procurement for food crops. India’s poor can bid goodbye to their government.
There is no denying that India’s shameful record in tackling hunger has pushed down South Asia’s performance globally. Except for Pakistan (rank 106), all other South Asian countries are doing much better – Nepal (72), Myanmar (77), Bangladesh (88), Sri Lanka (84). China, with whom India wants to compete, is at rank 29. Published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the Global Hunger Index (GHI) focuses annually on the international effort to combat hunger. In fact, India performs much worse than even Sub-Saharan Africa on the hunger front.
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