Its
sounds incredible, but it is not. The government that
came to power promising to ''enhance the welfare and
well-being of farmers, farm labour and workers, particularly
those in the unorganised sector and assure a secure
future for their families in every respect'' is now
choosing to attack one of the most basic requirements
for existence of these groups, access to adequate
nutrition.
The
UPA government's decision to cut the food subsidy
by reducing the quantity of wheat and rice issued
through the PDS and Antyodaya Anna Yojana is appalling
on all counts. According to this measure, the most
vulnerable households in the country, who are entitled
to receive some food grain at lower more subsidised
prices, will now receive 5 kg less of food grain per
month.
And this snatching of food from the mouths of millions
of infants and destitute people is expected to yield
''saved resources'' to the tune of Rs. 4524 crores
– around the same as the amount that was given up
by this same government last year when it chose to
do away completely with the capital gains tax. Clearly,
the government feels that domestic and foreign financial
speculators on the stock market are more in need of
public support than Antyodaya households, who are
defined as the poorest of the poor.
Yet this was not the declared perception of the government
a year ago. The National Common Minimum Programme
of the UPA government explicitly promised a comprehensive
medium-term strategy for food and nutrition security.
It went even further, promising that ''the objective
will be to move towards universal food security over
time, if found feasible. The UPA government will strengthen
the public distribution system (PDS) particularly
in the poorest and backward blocks of the country…
Special schemes to reach foodgrains to the most destitute
and infirm will be launched. Grain banks in chronically
food-scarce areas will be established. Antyodaya cards
for all households at risk of hunger will be introduced.''
There was a reason for making such promises: the evidence
of falling food consumption norms among most of the
population and widespread and in some places worsening
nutritional deficiencies. Per capita food-grain consumption
declined from 476 grams per day in 1990 to only 418
grams per day in 2001, and even aggregate calorific
consumption per capita declined from just over 2200
calories per day in 1987-1988 to around 2150 in 1999-2000.
This decline was marked even among the bottom 40 per
cent of the population, where it was unlikely to reflect
Engels curve type shifts in consumer choice, but rather
relative prices and the inability to consume enough
food due to income constraints. At least half the
children in India are born with severe protein deficiency
(which affects brain development and learning capacity)
and anaemia and iron deficiency are also widespread
and severe problems.
These problems had become acute in the latter phase
of the NDA government’s rule, and they – along with
agrarian crisis and lack of gainful employment – were
among the crucial reasons for public disaffection.
The UPA government therefore declared that food security
would be one of its major areas of focus.
But in the past year and a half, the problem of food
security for ordinary people remains intense and may
even have worsened in several regions. Reports from
the field point to chronic and severe under-nutrition,
even hunger deaths, from parts of the country as disparate
as Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. In Maharashtra, the
state government admitted to the High Court that 2814
children, mainly from tribal areas, had died of starvation
between January and July 2005. But in other areas,
the government is simply in denial and the reports
of hunger have come from other independent sources.
While increasing food insecurity reflects the more
general crisis of livelihood and is therefore quite
widespread, the worst affected groups are probably
Dalit and tribal groups who are already economically
marginalised. A recent report on the political economy
of hunger in Adivasi areas from the Centre for Environment
and Food Security provided some frightening information.
This report was based on a survey of 1000 households
in 40 sample villages in mainly tribal areas of Rajasthan
and Jharkhand. It revealed that 99 per cent of the
households were facing chronic and endemic hunger.
25 per cent had faced semi-starvation during the previous
week of the and another 24 per cent in the previous
month. Out of the 500 Adivasi households surveyed
in Rajasthan, not a single one had secured two square
meals for the whole of the previous year.
Only four respondents out of 1000 said they had eaten
two square meals the previous day. Out of the remaining
households, 48 per cent had eaten two poor/partial
meals, 35 per cent got one poor/partial meal plus
one distress meal, 11 per cent could get just one
poor/partial meal, 0.2 per cent had eaten only one
distress meal and 5 per cent had eaten only jungle
food on the previous day.
87 per cent of the surveyed Adivasi households in
Rajasthan and Jharkhand ate no or hardly any pulses
or animal products and therefore suffered from severe
protein deficiency, which made them vulnerable to
many opportunistic diseases. In fact, it is accepted
even by local officials that severe protein deficiency
among the children is responsible for very high infant
mortality rate in these areas.
Of course this study refers to areas where the PDS
is very limited and most of the people do not have
access, but even here, 90 per cent of respondents
said their food security had weakened over the past
two decades. But these are precisely the groups that
are supposed to be reached by the PDS and the Antyodaya
scheme.
In most other countries of the world, such a situation
would have been described as a crisis and caused national
emergencies to be declared, with alarm bells ringing
in government corridors. But it is in this context
of persistent and even extreme hunger, that the government
has chosen to reduce the amount of food grain distributed
under the PDS!
Reduction of the already small amounts available under
PDS for the below poverty line households (usually
35 kg per month) and Antyodaya households (usually
25 kg per month) will dramatically weaken what is
already a very fragile food balance. It may push many
more people into semi-starvation or open starvation,
as well as have a devastating effect on increasing
nutritional deficiencies which have major effects
on development. It is completely the opposite of what
was promised in terms of more food security for the
vulnerable.
But that is not the only adverse implication of this
extremely retrograde step. Essentially, this impacts
upon the entire system of procurement and distribution
since it will limit the turnover of the Food Corporation
of India and affect its ability to undertake procurement
at minimum support prices of crops. In the past two
years, procurement, offtake and stocks of foodgrains
with the Food Corporation of India have been steadily
falling, as the chart indicates.
Chart
1 >> Click
to Enlarge
It is likely that the current
attempt to reduce the disbursal of grain through the
PDS reflects the shortage of food stocks with the
FCI, since stocks are now down to a low of around
15 million tonnes. And this has to be seen in a broader
context of an implicit running down of the entire
system, and in particular of the Food Corporation
of India, leaving the space open for private grain
traders including multinationals. In a context of
severe agrarian crisis, ensuring food security requires
a system of crop procurement that provides price stability
to farmers and ensures enough grain to meet the requirements
of consumers, especially the poor. Instead, precisely
the opposite is being done.
The bitter irony is that while this measure will certainly
damage the food security of the poor, it may not actually
save the government as much money as it seems to think.
We already have the experience of misguided policies
which have directly damaged food security in the mid
1990s, when attempts to reduce the central government’s
food subsidy by increasing the price of food in the
public distribution system led to declining sales
and excess holding of food stocks. These meant more
losses, and therefore a larger level of food subsidy,
even as more people within the country went hungry.
It is inexcusable that even with that experience,
and the current evidence of widespread hunger and
malnutrition, the government could even contemplate
such a move.
