5 Points on Hunger & Malnutrition in India

1. Statistics: Food and Agriculture Report, 2018 stated that India houses 195.9 million of the 821 million undernourished people in the world, accounting for approximately 24% of the world’s hungry. Prevalence of undernourishment in India is 14.8%, higher than both the global and Asian average.
2. Statistics: It has been “reported in 2017 by the National Health Survey (NHS) that approximately 19 crore people in the country were compelled to sleep on an empty stomach every night. Moreover, the most alarming figure revealed is that approximately 4500 children die every day under the age of five years in our country resulting from hunger and malnutrition, amounting to over three lakh deaths every year owing to hunger, of children alone”.
3. Solution 1: State-funded community kitchen: Tamil Nadu's Amma Unavagam had become a roaring success by involving peers in self-help groups, employing the poor to serve hygienic food to eradicate the gnawing problem of hunger on the streets. Rajasthan's Annapurna Rasoi, Indira Canteens in Karnataka, Delhi's Aam Aadmi Canteen, Anna Canteen in Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand Mukhyamantri Dal Bhat and Odisha's Ahaar Centre were combating starvation and malnutrition crisis.
4. Solution 2: Creation of a national food grid by the Centre that would be beyond the scope of the Public Distribution Scheme (PDS).
5. Conclusion: Starvation deaths continue to eat into the right to life and dignity of social fabric and a “radical” new measure like community kitchens need to be set up across the country to feed the poor and the hungry.