Context

• Two recent reports, the annual report on “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020” by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and the 2020 Hunger report, “Better Nutrition, Better Tomorrow” by the Bread for the World Institute- document staggers facts about Indian food insecurity and malnutrition.

Indicators

• Using two globally recognised indicators, namely, the Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU) and the Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity (PMSFI), these two reports indicate India to be one of the most food-insecure countries, with the highest rates of stunting and wasting among other South Asian countries. 

Prevalence of Undernourishment

• The PoU measures the percentage of people who are consuming insufficient calories than their required minimum dietary energy requirement.
• In India, malnutrition has not declined as much as the decline has occurred in terms of poverty. 
• On the contrary, the reduction is found to be much lower than in neighbouring China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. 
• The decline in China is way higher than that of India, even though it had started with lower levels of PoU in 2000.
• In contrast, Afghanistan that started with a higher base than India had experienced higher rates of decline.
• Even Though economically, while Afghanistan is relatively much poorer and has gone through several prolonged conflicts in the last two decades, it has been more successful in reducing malnutrition than India. 
• Further, Pakistan and Nepal which had almost similar levels of PoU in the initial years, have also successfully reduced malnourishment at a rate that is much faster than India. 
• Therefore, irrespective of the base level of PoU, most of these countries have done better than India on this dimension.

Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity (PMSFI)

• The PMSFI identifies the percentage of people who live in households that are severely or moderately food insecure.

• Food Insecurity Experience Scale survey, which covers almost 90% of the world’s population estimates indicate that between 2014-16, about 29.1% of the total population was food insecure, which rose up to 32.9% in 2017-19. 
• In terms of absolute number, about 375 million of the total population was moderately or severely food insecure in 2014, which went to about 450 million in 2019.

Crucial elements excluded

• • Despite the National Food Security Act 2013 ensuring every citizen “access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices”, two crucial elements that still got left out are 
    • The non-inclusion of nutritious food items such as pulses and 

• Exclusion of potential beneficiaries. 

Upcoming issue

• Though States have temporarily expanded their coverage in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, the problem of malnutrition is likely to deepen in the coming years with rising unemployment and the deep economic slump.

Way forward 

Universalisation of PDS

• A major shift in policy has to encompass the immediate universalisation of the Public Distribution System which should definitely not be temporary in nature.
• There has to be distribution of quality food items and innovative interventions such as the setting up of community kitchens among other things.

Expansion of existing programmes

• The need of the hour remains the right utilisation and expansion of existing programmes to ensure that we arrest at least some part of this burgeoning malnutrition in the country.

Reference:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/stepping-out-of-the-shadow-of-indias-malnutrition/article33195963.ece