Evolving the concept of eating

     The basic duty of any State is to ensure food security to its citizens. But as time has evolved, so has the functions of the State. As more disinvestment and privatisation happens, the government must cater to a quality social welfare while other fields are left to the the market forces.

    In the early years after independence, there was acute food shortage and we were termed as ship to mouth nation by the Unites States from whom we were receiving food grains under PL-480 scheme against rupee payments. But US had its own agenda of arm twisting and using this as a political tactic. In mid 1960's we achieved food security and started exporting because of the Green revolution.

    Green revolution involved the use of High yield variety which was imported from Mexico along with chemical fertilisers, pesticides, agricultural machinery and irrigation. The benefits of the green revolution in the first phase were accrued by richer states of Punjab, Haryana and Western UP and more in favour of rich farmers who had access to capital. But along with this came the negative effects of Green revolution. Farmers started exploiting underground water, inappropriate and excessive use of chemical fertilisers depleted the soil of its nutrients and increased the divide between the rich and the poor. But yes, India became food secure.

    Since Green revolution, India has not faced any serious shortage of food and has been able to compensate through imports for any small mismatch between the demand and supply. But now, after achieving food security and 73 years of independence, the State cannot sit back and must evolve its role to provide nutritional security. This is a qualitative aspect and any democratic government must become more efficient in its delivery of scarce goods and services to its people.

    Stunting is when a person is of low height for her age and wasting is low weight for height. Global Hunger Index(GHI),2020 has ranked India on 94th position among 107 countries and  has termed the nutrition status as serious. GHI is a multidimensional statistic tool released by International food policy research institute in association with Concern Worldwide of Ireland and Welthungerhilfe (a German non-profit organization). It says that 3 among 4 Indians in rural areas cannot afford nutritional balanced diet. The performance of India is worse than BRICS countries and lesser than even Pakistan and Srilanka. The government must introduce a nutrition component in the PDS system. There are already some programmes like the mid day meals programme which includes milk, egg and fortified food in the diet. But more focus is needed on the vulnerable population at large.

    In order to develop a high quality demography, the government needs to concentrate on human dimensional aspects of health care and nutrition security. Finally we have to realise that a good healthy demographic dividend will accrue huge benefits to the country in the long run.