Planning commision report on hunger & poverty

India could well be one of the two fastest growing economies of the world. But for the poor, matters have only turned worse.The Human Development Report released by the Planning Commission on Friday (21/10/2011)has shockingly revealed that the poor in rural India were better fed about 30 years ago. The eye-opening figures render meaningless the controversy over Planning Commission's poverty line cut-offs - those spending over Rs 26 a day in rural areas and over Rs 32 a day in urban areas would no longer be considered to be below the poverty line.

In fact, on the hunger front it has been one long slide downwards. All states, according to the report, are facing "a serious to extremely alarming situation of hunger." Even as the Indian economy boasts of an average growth rate of over 6 per cent per annum, the calorie and protein intake of the poor has declined consistently, according to figures for 1983 to 2004-05 which were taken into account to prepare the report.

The telling impact of this on health is all too evident. During 2000-07, nearly half of India's children under the age of five years were malnourished.

This is the worst in South Asia and, shockingly, worse than the worst performer in the African region - a dubious distinction that dents India's image. Further, the eleventh five year plan document says that the absolute weight and height of Indians, on an average, have not shown any significant improvement over the last 25 years.

The Human Development Report, which was released a day ahead of the National Development Council (NDC) meeting to be attended by the Prime Minister - it was released by Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and rural development minister Jairam Ramesh - paints a dark picture of the Indian situation.

Sample this: Rural calorie consumption per day has fallen from 2,221 calories in 1983 to 2047 calories in 2004-05, a decline of 8 per cent. The urban calorie consumption fell by 3.3 per cent from 2,080 calories in 1983 to 2,020 calories in 2004-05. While the rural protein consumption registered a fall of 8 per cent, it remained unchanged in the urban areas.

The government had faced acute embarrassment over Planning Commission's estimate, based on the Tendulkar Committee report, which said that a daily expenditure of more than Rs 26 in rural areas (and Rs 32 in urban areas) did not classify a family as poor. As the government was lampooned over this, the plan panel, in sync with the rural development ministry, said the ongoing socio economic caste census (SECC) would provide a more realistic basis of identifying the country's poor.

The Human Development Report comes as an obvious dampener.

The human development report holds out no glimmer of hope, saying even seemingly well-off states faced a desperate hunger situation.

"The best performing (state) is Punjab, with a Hunger Index (HI) of 13.63, categorised as having a serious problem of hunger, in spite of its fairly high per capita income," says the report.

Similarly, Gujarat, though an economically prosperous state, has turned out to be worse than a poor state like Assam in this respect.

The HI is a tool to calculate hunger and malnutrition at the regional level in India. It based on the proportion of underweight children under the age of five years and the mortality rate of children under the age of five years.

The lower the Hunger Index, the better off a state is. So Punjab with an HI of 13.63 is the best performing state and MP with an HI of 30.87 is the worst.

The nutritional requirement recommends a national norm of 2,400 kilo calories a day for rural areas and 2,100 calories a day for urban areas, the difference being attributed to the lower rate of physical activity in urban areas. Even 20 years ago, an Indian's consumption of calories on average was way below the requirement.

In rural areas about 81 per cent of the population does not consume the recommended levels and for urban areas, the figure is 57 per cent. The calorie consumption for the poorest chunk of the population is significantly lower than the top quartile despite the poor needing more calories because of more manual work they need to do.

The share of food in total expenditure continued to fall throughout the three decades prior to 2004-05 in both rural and urban India with no compensatory rise in non-cereal consumption.

This, along with decreased calorie intake, has contributed to the intensity of hunger in India.

The findings of the report 2011, which were prepared by the Planning Commission over two years, is the second in the series of the human development reports released by the commission. It was prepared with the intention of indicating the wellbeing of the people in the country based on three indicators - consumption expenditure, education and health.

Though the HDI between 1999-2000 and 2007-08 increased by 21 per cent, the major driver of improvement is the education sector. The report clearly states that nutrition, sanitation and health remain areas of concern.

source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/poverty-malnutrition-india-hunger-index/1/157110.html