Poverty and Hunger

Topic Mains paper GS-2

Issues related to poverty and hunger

"Nothing is more dreadfully painful than poverty " sage poet Tiruvallur.

"Poverty gives rise to sorrow and hunger is the worst of disease" - the Buddha

Sustainable Development Goals 1: no poverty

Sustainable Development Goals 2: zero hunger

Issues :

Malnutrition in India
India ranks 94th among 107 countries on the global hunger index, which classifies the country having a serious level of hunger. Global hunger index is based on four component indicators:

Undernourishment: the share of the population that is undernourished.
Child wasting : the share of children under the age of five that are wasted means their weight is lower in comparison to their ages.
Child stunting: the share of children under the age of five years who are stunted, means the child has lower height in comparison of age.
Child mortality: the mortality rate of children under five.

According to the 2016 National Family Health Survey -4 , which provides latest data on health and nutrition:

Total fertility rate ( average number of children a woman gives birth in her lifetime) 2.2.
38.4% of children in the country were stunted ( low height for age)
21% were wasted ( low weight for height)
the prevalence of anaemia among Indian women had seen decline from 55% in 2005-06 to 53% in 2015-16.

About half of the cases are caused due to iron deficiency.
Lack of education, incorrect eating practices, poor bioavailability of nutrients, financial constraints and other environmental issue leads to nutrients deprived diets.
Health related expenditure are pushing to below poverty line and those are already below poverty line pushed only deeper.

Measures taken by Indian Government:

National Nutrition Mission: under this mission government of India targeted to achieve the following aims :

to reduce stunting and wasting by 6% by 2022( 2% per year ) among children;
to reduce anaemia by 9% by 2022( 3% per year ) among children, teenage ( age from thirteen to nineteen) girls, and pregnant women.

Scheme on fortification of rice and distribution through public distribution system : Prime minister Sri Narendra Modi in his independence speech announced the fortification of all rice under public distribution system by 2023. It is a centrally sponsored scheme launched by the Indian government to fortify all rice with iron and vitamins distributed under various subsidized food security scheme. This scheme currently is being run by the GoI at pilot program in 5 states of proposed 15 states. GoI is also thinking to enhance this scheme to the 112 aspirational districts of the country. But, government is facing a challenge of insufficient fortified rice kernels , whose availability is currently only 15,000 ton a year compared to an estimated 100,000 ton needed to cover the aspirational districts. fortified rice kernels are the basic ingredients that goes into the enriching of rice with vitamins and minerals.

this rice will be available to the ration shop
it will be provided to the children in the mid day meal
the rice will be available through every scheme.
according to WHO, rice fortified with iron and vitamins had shown decline of iron deficiency by 35%.
Food fortification : food fortification refers to the process in which micronutrients are added to commonly eaten staples to enrich and enhance their nutritional value. Rice is an ideal vehicle for fortification. Broken rice kernels are ground into flour, following which it is mixed with water, vitamins and minerals to make dough. The dough is then passed through an extruder to produce fortified kernels. Fortified rice kernels will be blended with normal rice 1% W/W ( means one kg rice kernels will be included in 100 kg of normal rice with a ratio of 1:100)
Pros:

it is solution of to address micronutrients deficiencies.
fortification carries no risk of toxicity.
Food safety standard authority of India has only allowed for 30- 40 % of recommended dietary allowance of micronutrients to be added to staples to meet the missing nutrients.
consumption of rice fortified with iron can be extremely beneficial for the most vulnerable, especially pregnant women and young girls.
it is a cost effective method. The cost per kg is no more than Rs. 0.60 to 0.80.
it will decrease problem of stunting, wasting and anaemia.

Only half of them are affected by iron deficiency and rest have no need of iron, so to provide everyone the same fortified rice would increase iron level and could lead to diabetes. As iron stores in body increase with dietary fortification the risk of diabetes increase because thier is no means top excrete iron and are at most risk of excess intake of iron.
overeating rice means even more risk of excess.
Indian diets already have iron native, so there is need to make people aware more and more through poshan like campaign.

Public distribution system: subsidized ration being provided.
Poshan campaign : every year poshan abhiyan is being run by the government to make people aware in month of September through public participation.
Mission Pariwar Vikas : was launched in 2016 for improvement access to Contraceptive and family planning services. In which special focus was given to high Fertility districts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand.
Family Planning Program: was launched in 1952 to slow down population growth. India has long been working on population control. India was the first country to launched national level Family Planning Programme. A total fertility rate 2.1 is considered as the replacement rate, which is a crucial factor in population growth. It ensures the replacement of a women and her partner upon death with no overall increase or decrease in numbers.

note- coarse grain : jowar, bajra maize, ragi etc.

Sources

IASmanti⁵⁰