1.

The concept of household food &

nutrition security
Access to adequate food, which is one of the fore-most basic needs of
life should be the birthright of every single human being on this earth.
On its part, mother nature has provided this unique planet of ours with
such abundant resources and human beings with such intelligence that
the global production can easily feed the present and future population
of this entire world. Yet, the way human society has got organised, one
fifth of the population of the developing countries i.e. about 800 million
people suffer from chronic under nutrition (FAO 1992). Many of them
are at the threshold of starvation, one or two poor harvests can push
them into the jaws of death. These chronically undernourished millions
are trapped in a vicious cycle - not getting adequate food regularly and
therefore, not being able to lead a healthy and active life and without
such a life, not being able to either produce or procure required food.
Many more millions are mildly or moderately undernourished. In lay
man's language all these millions can be said to be food insecure and
others can be said to be enjoying food security.
The specific term "food security" is of recent origin, although in some
form or other, adequate availability of food must have been one of the
most primary concerns of the human beings since time immemorial. In
recent years, most of the experts like to define food security as access
by all people at all times to enough food for a healthy life. It was FAO
Committee on World Food Security which, in a way, formalised the
definition in 1983 and incorporated following three specific goals for
food security:
i) ensuring adequacy of food supplies;
ii) maximising stability of supplies; and
iii) securing access to available supplies to all who need them.
The World Bank Position Paper on Poverty and Hunger (19.86) added
an "activity level" concept to these goals, stating that "food security
must assure access by all people at all times to enough food for an
active and healthy life." In turn, food insecurity was defined as the lack
of access to enough food for a healthy, active life style. It is now being
increasingly appreciated that food security is primarily a matter of
ensuring effective demand rather than a problem relating to food
supply. With such realisation, inter-relationship between poverty,
hunger and food security is gaining international recognition and
serious attempts are being made to define and identify people at risk.
It is, therefore, important that every household should either have
capacity to produce adequate food for all the members or have
purchasing power to acquire it. It has to be appreciated that a country
may be food surplus but all its citizens may not be enjoying food
security as some may have no purchasing power. On the other hand, a
country may be food deficit but every person may be enjoying food
security, with that country being able to import the required quantity of
food and each person having either direct access (through the family's
income) or indirect access (provided by the welfare State) to required
food. In its turn, the lack of adequate access is a function of either
production fluctuation or price fluctuation or a combination of both.
"These two fluctuation lead directly to a fluctuation in real income
within the community. These fluctuations in real income, both direct &
indirect, affect the farmer, the agricultural labourer, as well as other
member of the society, will ultimately have an impact on household
food consumption, that of the poorer households being particularly
sensitive." (Alberto Valde's, 1981) It is therefore, necessary to combat
such fluctuation in order to ensure and maintain food security, for
which the country must hold highly liquid assets, either in the shape of
food stocks or monetary instruments. Attaining food security is
therefore, a costly affair and this is why we find rich countries being
food secure at any cost & poor ones food-insecure.
Household Food Security
It will be clear from the above that although national food security is
important as providing a foundation, in the ultimate analysis what is
more important is food security for each and every household and
within it to every member of the family. Put differently, "at the
household level, food security is defined as access to food that is
adequate in terms of quality, quantity, safety and cultural acceptability
for all household members." (Gillespie, and Mason, 1991). Reference
can, at this stage, be also drawn to the concept of household food
security adopted recently at the International Conference on Nutrition
(ICN) held at Rome during December 1992, at which the author
happened to have represented the country. "Food security is defined in
its most basic form as an access by all people at all times to the food
needed for a healthy life". Achieving food security has thus three
dimensions. "It is necessary to ensure a safe and nutritionally
adequate food supply both at the national level and at the household
level. It is necessary to have a reasonable degree of stability in the
supply of food, both from one year to the other and during the year.
And most critical, is the need to ensure that each household has
physical, social and economic access to enough food to meet its
needs" (ICN Pub, 1992). This means that each household must have
the knowledge and the ability to produce or resources to procure the
food that it needs on a sustainable basis. The Conference went one
step forward and recognised the importance of intake of balanced diets
and also cautioned against over consumption or waste of nutrition as
sometimes seen in developed countries. It reiterated that assuring food
security should be the fundamental objective of the development
strategy of countries and the extent of the attainment of this goal
should be a major indicator of the success or failure of the
developmental process. The Conference went on to suggest that in
countries where food insecurity is quite prevalent a multi-sectoral and
multi-organisational approach has to be adopted which should, inter-
alia, include adoption of such appropriate developmental strategies
which will encourage economic growth with a specific focus on removal
of poverty. The emerging phenomenon of what is being described as
"jobless growth" has also to be taken care of, especially in developing
countries like India, where labour saving technologies may be inducing
national growth and incomes but rate of employment generation may
not, in reality, be increasing. It will, therefore, be necessary to make
substantial investments in human development so as to improve the
health, as also the educational and technological skills of the work
force enabling them to participate gainfully in the expanding economy
and earn increasingly higher incomes. If this does not happen, the poor
will be crushed between unemployment on one hand and rising food
price on the other. It has to be appreciated and acknowledged that
investment for ensuring food security is investment in development
and Food' is really a 'development input'.
The strategy should also consciously reduce the fall-outs on account of
structural adjustment programmes to a minimum and where such fall-
outs become inevitable, provide for appropriate measures to alleviate
the hardships for the poor. The families at risk would also need to be
identified and such risk reduced by stimulating employment
generation, increasing the skills of both men and women, providing
improved and appropriate production technologies etc. In the rural
areas, access to land and other resources would need to be improved,
marketing infrastructure expanded, agriculture diversified to high value
products and agro-industries promoted. It will also be necessary to
stabilise food supplies and smoothen year to year and seasonal
variations in food availability by maintaining required buffer stocks.
Further, if, as a part of globalisation of economy, domestic cereal
prices are allowed to rise and domestic market is integrated with the
international market, it will have to be seen whether incomes of the
poor are also moving towards international levels. Even if this positive
development is taking place, short term measures like public
distribution of foodgrains, food coupons etc. will have to be continued
because Indian consumer with one three hundredth per capita income
compared to that of the developed countries cannot be expected to
pay the same price for food-grains as those in the developed countries.
International Recognition and Action
Organised international concern and concrete action in the field of food
security has been of a fairly recent origin. It was at the World Food
Conference, organised by the FAO at Rome in 1974, that pointed
attention of the world leaders was drawn to the need for devising ways
and means for ensuring food security to the millions of poor of the
world who could not afford even one square meal a day. The
Conference was organised against the background of a sharp decline in
the world food production in the sixties and early seventies,
threatening a famine at the global level. The Conference adopted a
solemn declaration stating that "no child, woman or man should go to
bed hungry and no human being's physical and mental capabilities
should be stunted by malnutrition". A special agency under the aegis
of the U.N., named the World Food Council, was also set up to
coordinate production and distribution of food at the global level to
realise the goal set by the Conference. It was the good luck of the
millions living in the threatened countries that the global famine did
not occur and the apprehended sharp decline in world food production
did not take place. On the other hand, countries including India, were
able to get out of the rut of stagnating food production and achieve
rapid growth through adoption of a technological package, commonly
called the green revolution. This silver lining apart, the declarations
adopted at the World Food Conference could not really be attained in
the subsequent years; may be the world community became
complacent once the threatened global famine did not materialise. It is
disappointing that the U.N. is presently examining the possibility of
either abolishing the WFC or transferring its functions to some other
U.N. agency due to resources crunch. Not that the world has become
free of famines but localised famines probably do not stir the
conscience of world community to that extent any more. The other side
of the picture is that it is now well accepted that the specter of hunger
will not vanish even if the world as a whole is able to produce every
year the quantity of food required arithmetically i.e. population
multiplied by per capita nutritional norms. This is also true at country
level in the developing world. It is now fully realised that what is more
important is to provide purchasing power to households at risk; the
production and availability of food will automatically go up. This,
however, is a highly elusive goal; with no immediate scope to get
stable gainful employment, families cannot have any food security.
It is, therefore, no wonder that as recently as in 1990 the FAO report on
the State of Food and Agriculture concedes that "no contemporary
problem compared in gravity to the human devastation caused by
persisting hunger and malnutrition". Recognising the grave situation at
the joint FAD/WHO sponsored International Conference on Nutrition
(ICN) at Rome in 1992, all the participating countries pledged, amongst
other things, to eliminate, before the end of the decade (i.e. by 2000
AD), famine and famine related deaths and reduce starvation and
widespread chronic hunger substantially within the same decade. The
concern highlighted at these two Conferences in 1974 and 1992 has at
least succeeded in putting into sharp focus the great challenge before
the policy makers in ensuring food security to all in their countries and
the need for concerted action at the global level. ICN-92 has, in fact,
extended the concept of food security to one of nutrition security,
without which an active and healthy life for all will not be possible. The
unfortunate thing is that that challenge appears too big for many
countries to handle, notwithstanding the efforts being made by them
and such efforts being supplemented by FAO to increase food
production and by World Food Programme and UNICEF to reach the
food and nutrition to the needy. Much greater efforts will be required
both by the concerned countries as also by the UN agencies, to
achieve at least food security to all the people on this earth in
foreseeable future and simultaneously work for the total nutrition
security for all, though it may be achieveable only over a longer period
of time.
Availability of Food at the Global Level
At the global level, there is adequate food available for every human
being and enough food can be produced for the world's growing
population. However, the World is characterised by a limited number of
surplus food producers with the potential to export food and a very
large number of food deficit countries, which cannot afford to import
the required quantities of food, are developing countries with serious
balance of payments problems. Such countries, even those facing
chronic food shortages, cannot depend on food aid and when it is
made available it can sometimes carry its own hidden price. "The
distribution of food aid, predominantly itself a result of domestic need
to dispose off surplus production in ways which do not depress the
world food prices has often been political" (Tarrant, 1980). To make
matters even more difficult for underfed, the aid is often tied to
specific projects with a part of the aid, sometimes substantial, getting
back to the donor countries in the shape of purchase of machines and
payments to experts. At the other end of the spectrum, there are
situations when "aid is used by elites in the receiving countries to
entrench themselves and continue with their exploitation of poor in
other own countries." (Jon Bennet, 1987). If only the food aid could be
delinked from all extraneous politico-rnilitary consideration, there
would be no need for millions to go hungry to bed and breed more
numbers in the false hope of fighting off poverty and hunger. It is
unfortunate that such a situation prevails notwithstanding mountains
of accumulated foodgrains with a few countries. If fact, some of these
countries have to make incentive payments to their farmers to keep
their fields fallow so that food prices are maintained at high levels. In
the most recent past, while people in the starvation hit sub-Saharan
countries could be saved by sending a few million tons of food there,
the developed countries carried a closing stock of something like 273
million tones of foodgrains at the end of 1992-93 (International Wheat
Council Report No. 214, London, 1994). The global production and
consumption pattern for foodgrains is itself very skewed. It is
estimated that the developing countries having 70% of the world's
population, produce only 45% of the foodgrains. While a substantial
part of the grains produced in the developed countries is fed to the
animals, it is estimated that "as compared to an average requirement
of 2250 calories, about 5000 calories are used on per capita basis in
the developed countries. (Bapna, 1990). A paper distributed at the
PrepCom meeting for the International Conference on Population &
Dev. in Cairo (Robert Sessone, 1994) also echoed similar sentiments
and tried to explode the myth that the problem of developing countries
are their own creation due to burgeoning population they have. It
observed that "the 20 countries having the worst food situation are low
population countries and 18 of the 20 have low population densities;
that since 1961, the percentage of people living in developing
countries with a diet averaging less than 2000 calories per day has
decreased from 74 to 6%; that since 1961, the percentage of people
living in developing countries with a diet averaging more than 2600
calories per day, has increased from 2 to 50%; that since 1947, food
production per person has increased by more than 40% in developing
countries; that more of earth is covered by forest than is used for
farming and that most of the earth's potential farming land is not used
for farming." The situation is compounded by the fact that most of the
developing countries neither have the financial resources to purchase
the required foodgrains from the international market nor have been
able to get out of the rut of shortage of food from their own indigoes
production due to a number of factors - historical as well as the
inequalities imposed by the modern market economy. In her
introduction to the book "The Hunger Machine", Susan George says
"This book, because it is about hunger, is primarily about inequalities.
Sometimes these inequalities are quite straightforward, like the
obvious disparity between the rich nations and the poor. Sometimes
they are hidden one inside another, like Russian dolls. But always
everywhere they are reasons for deep seated, persistent hunger,
simply another name of injustice." (Jon Bennet, 1987). Distortion in aid
policies continues even today. "Donors send only one third of
development assistance to the 10 most populous countries, which
have two thirds of the world's poor. The richer developing countries of
W.Asia get US$ 21 per capita against US$ 6 per capita for the poorer
countries of South Asia" (UNDP, 1994 Edn). The availability of food in
different countries, therefore, varies greatly. Such availability can be
assessed on the basis of dietary energy supply (DES), which generally
measures availability in terms of calories per capita per day. DES for
some selected developing and developed countries is given in Table I
below (FAO Annual Reprot, 1992)
Table 1 PER CAPITAL DIETARY ENERGY SUPPLIES
CALORIES SUPPLIES PER CAPITA
COUNTRY 1972- 1975- 1978- 1981- 1986-
74 77 80 83 88
India 2203 1999 2100 2113 2104
Pakistan 2049 2188 2232 2208 2167
China 2029 2087 2275 2460 2637
Banglades 1907 1910 1911 1923 1925
h
Brazil 2487 2514 2595 2621 2703
Egypt 2566 2727 2941 3184 3347
Mexico 2680 2780 2940 3099 3123
Belgium 3507 3511 3577 3765 3901
France 3124 3162 3249 3216 3312
Australia 3105 3280 3286 3258 3347
Germany 3370 3486 3605 3711 3855
DES in 1986-88 was thus as low as 1925 calories in Bangladesh and as
high as 3901 in Belgium. It is certainly a huge disparity, even after
discounting the varying calorie requirements of people in different
climatic regions. The disparity is substantial even within the developing
world, the DES to an average Chinese was almost 25% more than to an
average Indian. Another point to be noted is that while DES for the
developed countries has been continuously rising since 1972-74, and
has also been increasing for some developing countries like China,
Brazil, Egypt and Mexico; for many poor countries, it has been more or
less stagnating at prevailing levels, showing even negative growth
once in a while. This clearly brings out the inter play between food
security and poverty in many of the developing countries. It is,
therefore, no wonder that in the FAO Report, 1990 Mr. Edward Saouma,
Director General of FAO stated "I must express once again my deep
concern that one out of five persons of the population of nearly 100
developing countries remain under-nourished. Also, we cannot be
oblivious of, nor indifferent to, the fate of the millions of people who
are threatened by starvation as soon as a season of insufficient rainfall
or any other natural or man made event, disrupts the normal supply of
food or hinders their access to it", it also has to be appreciated that no
less than 30% and up to 75% of total calorie supply in developing
countries is cereal based. Therefore, as the first step toward food
security, the availability of cereals itself is the major problem for
millions of poor people in these countries. The problem is most serious
in some of the African and South Asian countries. However, availability
of cereals is only the first and in fact, preliminary step. Such availability
may only prevent the human being from dying of hunger. Human
beings, unlike animals, cannot just live at survival threshold. The
human mind goads him to indulge in physical and mental activities
that will make human life easier and richer. For this, one must have a
healthy body and mind. In order to reach such a stage of healthy body
and mind and maintain oneself at that stage, intake of not only cereals
but other food items like milk, fruits. vegetables, pulses, fish, egg etc.
is required so that the human body can get various nutrients (including
micronutrients) that will make the body active and healthy both
physically and mentally. The availability of all these has to be,
therefore, looked into. In other words, the entire food and nutrition
security is what that must interest us. In the next Chapter, we will
examine the requirements of various foodstuffs and nutrients that
experts recommend for consumption in India.

2. Nutritional requirements in India

In the present endeavour to. find the status of food and nutrition
security in India, it is necessary to first examine the 'standards' against
which such security is to be judged. At the conceptual plane, it can, be
stated that a country can be said to have achieved complete food and
nutrition security if each and every person in that country is able to
consume a minimum quantum and quality of various ingredients of
what I would like to call 'an adequate and balanced diet' on a regular
basis. Availability and affordability of such diet, backed by health and
educational services in an environmentally sustainable scenario will
then enable each member of the society to live a 'good' life; each
individual personality getting an opportunity to flower to one's full
potential. However, it is a matter of intense international debate as to
what should be considered an adequate and balanced diet for different
groups of individuals in a society, "The World Bank (1986) used
FAD/WHO norms for reference individuals for 'moderate' activity for
specific countries/regions. A large variation in defining 'adequate' food
exists, ranging between 1400 and 2800 calories and therefore, is
subject to value judgment. (Maxwell et.al., 1992). "The poor in rural
areas who do heavy physical work in the field need much higher
calorie intake than for moderate activity which can swell the number of
food insecure substantially." (Bapna, 1993).
It is actually not easy for experts to exactly lay down nutrient
requirements and quantities of various ingredients separately for
various population and activity groups. Requirements of special
categories like infants, mothers etc. have to be separately looked into.
In any case, standards setting for any human activity is indeed a very
difficult task. Diversity in agro-climatic conditions; food habits; life
styles and spiritual/philosophical inclinations condition the nutritional
intakes, apart from the 'measurable physiological needs' of the human
body. To go on to determine the averages, experts have to depend on
sample surveys which suffer from their inherent limitations. At the
same time, an average balanced diet made up of various food items
has to be prescribed so that a country could plan to produce or procure
these.
In India, it is the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) that sets up
Nutrition Advisory Committees or Expert Groups and recommend the
"Dietary Allowances" in respect of energy (Calories), proteins, fats,
minerals, iron, vitamins etc. for various age groups within the
population including special groups like infants, pregnant/nursing
mothers, children etc. and at the same time recommend dietary
allowance by activity groupings also. These Committees/Expert Group
also recommend weighted average per capita requirements for the
population of the country as a whole, to enable the policy-makers plan
for production or procurement of the required quantities of various
foodstuffs. The first Nutrition Advisory Committee of ICMR had made its
recommendations way back in 1944. The recommendations have been
reviewed, up-dated and amended ever since, generally at intervals of
ten years. Such reviews and revised recommendations have been
made in 1958, 1968, 1978, 1984 and 1990. The 1984
Recommendations had specially observed that "RDA (Recommended
Dietary Allowance) for Indians are being revised and updated at
intervals of about 10 years in view of the changes in our concept of
human requirements of several nutrients as a result of studies carried
out during the previous decade" (ICMR pub. 1984).
The most recent recommendations available are those made by the
Expert Group of ICMR in 1990. The concerned publication (ICMR pub.
1990) can be seen for details but the recommendation made in respect
of the two important nutrition requirements i.e. energy and protein are
given below:
Table 2 ENERGY ALLOWANCE FOR ADULTS
Catego Reference Activity Energy
ry body Allowance
Weight Kg. K.Cal

Man 60 Sedentar 2425

y
Moderate 2875
Heavy 3800
Woman 50 Sedantar . 1875
y
Moderate 2225
Heavy 2925
Table 3 PROTEIN ALLOWANCES FOR ADULTS
Catego Body Protein requirement
ry Weight in g.
 Kg. Per Kg. Per day
Man 60 1.00 60
Woman 50 1.00 50
The energy and protein requirements are given separately for various
age groups like adults, infants, children and special categories like
pregnant and nursing mothers. Although the ICMR Expert Group also
recommends dietary allowances for other nutrients like fat, iron,
calcium, vitamins etc. and we will have an occasion to refer to these
later on, we may discuss only energy and protein recommendations in
details here since these are the most important nutrients which need
to be tackled first. Height, body-weight and physical activity are three
important determinants of energy requirement. It may also be
mentioned that the 1990 report of the Expert Group recommended an
upward revision in the 'reference body weight of adult man and woman
in order to harmonise the body weights of adults with those of well-to-
do and normally growing children and also taking into consideration
the expanded weights for their heights. This was important since "the
national goal of any country would be to provide adequate nutrition
and health to its population so that they attain their full genetic
potential in growth and development". (ICMR, 1990).
Recommendations on energy requirements are vital because they have
a direct bearing on the status of poverty, which in India, is defined by
per capita incomes that will enable a person to achieve daily intake of
2400 K.Cal in rural areas and 2100 K Cal in urban areas. While
proportion of people living below the poverty 'line' can be adjudged
against these standards, we need to have a weighted average of
energy requirement for the entire population so that nation can plan
for production and availability of at least that much energy giving
foodstuffs. The ICMR Expert Group (1990) has concluded that on the
basis of the present recommended dietary allowance (RDA), it ought to
be 2200 Kcal per capita per day.
As regards recommendation on the weighted average protein
requirement, the Expert Group (1990) has suggested 50
gins/capita/day. This again, just like weighted average energy
requirement, is based on recommended dietary protein allowance of
different groups, which constitutes the absolute safe levels. Thus, while
many individuals with intakes below RDA are not necessarily at risk,
those with intakes of RDA norms or higher are certainly not at risk. The
Expert Group also recommended that a PE percentage between 8 and
12 would meet the protein requirements of any group, provided its
energy needs are fulfilled.
We will have an occasion to discuss in details the requirement and
availability picture of energy and protein as brought out by the
National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB) of the National Institute
of Nutrition through their surveys during 1975-79 and repeat surveys
during 198890, as also by the Working Group set by the Ministry of
Agriculture (April 1994) based on production and availability of various
foodstuffs. At this stage, it can be mentioned that while NNMB has
used per consumption unit requirement of 2400 Kcal of energy and 60
gms of protein, the Working Group in Agriculture has used the
weighted average per capita requirement of 2200 Kcal energy & 50
gms of proteins.
Balanced Diets
Composition of balanced diet is the end result of the RDAs. The
balanced diet is, in a way, the practical prescription for consumption of
a basket of food items, which is likely to provide all the required
nutrients to the human body. It was the Advisory Committee of the
ICMR (1984) that had reviewed the matter in detail and formulated a
new set of recommendations with regard to balanced diets for Indians
based on the concept of 'least cost'. As compared to the previous
recommendations on balanced diets, lower quantities of pulses and
green leafy vegetables have been recommended without of course,
sacrificing the nutrients contents to make the recommended diet more
practical and acceptable. The report has given details of balanced diets
for adult man, adult woman, children, boys and girls separately &
activity wise but those for adult man and woman are given below:
Table 4 RECOMMENDED BALANCED DIETS
Adult Man Adult Woman
Bood Items Sedenta Modera Heav Sedenta Modera Heav
ry te y ry te y
at work work work work
Cereals 460 520 670 410 440 575
Pulses 40 50 60 40 45 50
Leafy 40 40 40 100 100 100
Vegetables
Other-do- 60 70 80 40 40 100
Roots & Tubers 50 60 80 50 50 60
Milk 150 200 250 100 150 200
Oils & fats 40 45 65 20 25 40
Sugar & 30 35 55 20 20 40
Jaggery
The 1984 report, recognising that the average per capita requirement
of foodstuffs is one of the important considerations from the practical
point of view in estimating national food supplies, gave this per capita
requirement as under:
Table 5 PER CAPITA REQUIREMENT OF FOOD (gins/day) AT THE
NATIONAL LEVEL
 Foodstuff Physiologi Reta Producti
cal il on
Cereals 396 436 490
Pulses 43 47 53
Leafy 58 64 72
Vegetables
Other-do- 45 49 55
Roots & tubers 40 44 0
Milk 200 220 248
Fats & Oils 31 34 38
Sugar/Jaggery 31 34 38
It is against the above recommended requirement of food items that
we have to judge the food and nutrition security of India. However, any
narrow value judgments might not be easy to pronounce because of
the great diversity inherent in all aspects of life in this highly populous
subcontinent type of country. The climatic variations ranging from
tropical climate to snow bound areas on one hand and from desert to
hot-humid sub-tropical climate on the other, the country presents a
bewildering diversity making the task of prescribing an average
standard that much difficult. However, the scientific methods of
surveys and studies undertaken by the experts on a continuous basis
can make the above mentioned averages quite useful guide for the
nutritional surveillance and planning.
An extremely important consideration in India is of course, the
prevailing poverty. This country's richness till 16th century or so which
had earned it the title of the "golden bird", also became its undoing. It
attracted invaders repeatedly, culminating in a long spell of British
rule. Along with industrial revolution of Britain, India turned into a
backyard, a supplier of raw material with sharp decline in workforce
engaged in manufacturing. These centuries saw growing poverty and
frequent famines, many taking tolls in millions. The last famine before
independence in 1943 is known to have resulted in death of around 3.5
million people. With such a background, when even two square meals
were not available to millions of households, the availability of basic
cereals itself became an important goal to be achieved when the
country became independent. It is, therefore, very important to first
examine the status of availability and consumption of cereals, which in
any case account for 75 to 80 percent of the dietary energy. Then
comes the availability and consumption of pulses which are the main
source of proteins in a country where the population is predominantly
vegetarian. Finally, the availability of fats and oils, milk, vegetable,
sugar, vitamins etc.
It is, therefore, proposed to examine the production, availability and
consumption of cereals in India in quite a detailed manner. The role of
the price policy and public procurement in increasing the agricultural
production will also be examined. The fluctuations in foodgrains
production will, inter alia, be examined as it seriously affect the food
security. The Public Distribution System (PDS), which is one of the most
important instruments in providing food security, will also be discussed
in some detail to examine its evolution, its shortcomings and reforms
needed to make it a sharper instrument in providing food security to
poor households. Since poverty is the root cause of undernourishment,
the status of poverty and alleviation programmes also need to be
examined in detail as these improve the purchasing power of the poor
households and consequently enhance their access to food. The data
on availability and consumption of other nutrients is not as exhaustive
as foodgrains but whatever data is available will be analysed for
examining the status of intake of other nutrients.
It has also to be appreciated that recommended dietary intakes are
given for the individuals. However, it is almost impossible to divide the
consumption of a household amongst all its members with any degree
of accuracy. The normal practice, therefore, is to take a household as a
unit of food and nutrition security exercise. In the NNMB surveys on
consumption of food amongst households chosen for survey, all the
food consumed by the family as a whole is taken into account and
converted into nutrients by referring to food composition Tables of
Indian Foodstuffs. In the weighment method, all raw material used for
cooking by the family during the day is weighed whereas in 24 -furs
recall method, amount of cooked food consumed by the formally is
assessed. The individuals constituting the family are converted into
consumption units (CU) and per CU per day intakes calculated. Thus
household food security becomes the bottom line even though in some
cases, there may not be a just sharing of the food.

3. Historical perspective of food

management in India
Shortage of food has not been unknown to the societies world over
throughout the ages. The most extreme form of such shortage, the
famines, have also been experienced by societies in varying degrees.
Some of the notable instances "beginning with 436 B.C. when
thousands of starving Romans threw themselves in the Tiber; or in
Kashmir in AD 918 when one could scarcely see the water of Vitasta
(Jhelum) entirely covered as the river was with corpses; or in 1933-37
in China, when we are told, four million people died in one region only;
or in 1770 in India when the best estimates point to ten millions
deaths; or in 1945-51 in Ireland when the potato famine killed about
one fifth of the total Irish population and led to emigration of a
comparable number" (Amartya Sen, 1981).
India, with a vast population and uncertain harvest due to dependence
on monsoon rains, has always been vulnerable to famines. The
countries in the North also face year to year variation in precipitation
and resultant fluctuations in harvests. Their buffer stocks and their
ability to purchase, allows them to sail through such fluctuations with
no adverse impact on food security. However, in countries like India,
dependent as they are on vagaries of the monsoon, even one year of
drought can, depress the production very substantially and also dry up
the reserves and pipelines stocks. A second successive year of drought
not only further depresses the production, but there is hardly anything
left in the private or community stocks and the pipelines also get
completely dried up. The situation then becomes ripe for a famine. The
problem was further compounded earlier due to lack of transportation
facilities and even if there were surplus foodgrains stocks in one part of
the country, it would not be possible to transfer huge stocks from such
parts to distressed areas. So, famines remained a part of India's
history. Kautilya, the great statesman of ancient India, in his exhaustive
chronicle on statecraft "Arthashastra" (321-301 BC), has advised the
kings that during famine, the king should show favour to his people
providing them with seeds and provisions. He may either do such
works as are usually resorted to in clamities; he may show favour by
distributing either his own collection of provisions or the hoarded
income of the rich among the people". (Bhatia, 1970). In Vedic era, the
parting direction of Guru to his disciples, was to go and grow
foodgrains. The saying "Annam Brahmam" (grain is God) also illustrate
the importance that was given to foodgrains. There was "a gradual
evolution of an elaborate system of precautions against famines and
for grappling with food problems... The Mauryas under whom India
received her first unity-both cultural and political-laid down elaborate
instructions to the higher officers with respect to the measures for
dealing with famine and other natural calamities" (Acharya, 1983).
Villages were encouraged to have their own "grain reserves" and kings
used to maintain their own emergency stocks. "The Sohgaure Plate-
another early Mauryas document discovered in Gorakhpur district,
records an order to Mahamatya (Chief Minister) of Sravasti to the effect
that certain store houses (Katha galani) at Triveni, Mathura, Cancu,
Modena and Bhadra are to be opened to cultivators in season of
distress" (Acharya, 1983). Occasional famines appear to have occurred
in India in some sort of regularity all through-it is said that India faces a
major drought once in fifty years. There were 14 famines between 11th
and 17th century (Bhatia, 1985). It, however, appears that earlier
these famines were localised and it was only after 1860 that famines
come to signify general shortage of foodgrains in the country:
Frequency of famines also seems to have increased, there being 20
between 1860 and 1909. However, the Governments remained
unaffected by these famines and perhaps felt that, at worst, the prices
of foodgrains in affected areas will go up but foodgrains will also reach
those areas through the marketing channels in view of the attraction of
high prices. In fact, "the Famine Commission (1880) had observed that
each province in British India was surplus in foodgrains and annual
surplus, including of Burma (then part of British India, later an
independent country Burma and now Myanmar) was 5.16 million tons"
(Bhatia, 1970). At that time, annual export of rice and other grains
from India was to the tune of one million tons. Situation seems to have
changed drastically on the eve of the Second World War and the
Bengal Famine of 1943 is known to have claimed around 3.5 million
lives though the official Famine Inquiry Commission had pegged the
figure at 1.4 million. However, the Commission did make a general
observation that "as many as 30% of the people remained hungry." In
any case, this famine jolted the Government out of its slumber and
gave birth to a new era of food management in the country, resulting
in introduction of policies of control on price and regulation of the
distribution of foodgrains by the State.
Food Situation at the time of Partition of the Country
Partition of the country in 1947 left India with 82% of the total
population of undivided India but only 75% of the cereal production.
The surplus province of Punjab was partitioned and West Punjab, which
had a well-established network of irrigation canals, went to Pakistan,
Sind province, which too was a surplus province also went to Pakistan.
These two provinces together used to supply about one million tons of
foodgrains to other provinces in undivided India. At the time of
independence, thus, the new nation India started its tryst with destiny
with lots of handicaps as far as food security was concerned.
Soon after becoming an Independent nation on 15 August 1947, India
opted for planned economic development. Rapid economic growth to
improve the standards of living of all, through appropriate distributive
mechanisms was an important principle of Indian Planning. Gandhi's
philosophy of aiming for contentment and happiness with wants being
kept at a low level, and each village becoming more or less a self-
reliant entity, was quickly given a go by. This was an universal
phenomenon during that period, the days of psychological and spiritual
happiness and contentment were getting replaced by materialistic
well-being. Modernity was the concept in vogue. In fact, the idea of
what constituted good life seemed to be not significantly different
between the socialist and the capitalist modernisers. while "the
Gandhian approach has always talked about the voluntary limitation of
wants, the 'need for having self-reproducing village communities and
about issues bearing a better balance between man and nature,
Gandhi and his disciples looked more like moralizing old men than
people who could be expected to change the direction of the society.
Thus, the modernising school under Nehru won the day" (Sukhamoy
Chakraborty, 1988). Since then, Indian planning has consciously and
consistently accepted "growth with equality" as the cornerstone of its
strategy. The equality concept requires, among other things that
market forces would not be allowed to have unrestrained free play and
will be controlled to an extent that will help superimpose social policy
over the economic policies. Striving for equality, in practical terms at
least the minimum level of standard of living, including of the
household food security, was an important practical manifestation of
such equality. The concept of attainment of a minimum standard for all
the people becomes all the more relevant in case of commodities like
foodgrains which are required by all to satisfy one of their most basic
human needs and critical lack of which had resulted in loss of millions
of lives in the pre-Independence history of this country. The equity
concept in respect of food becomes absolutely compelling in a country
like India, where around 300 million people were still living below the
poverty line; their physical and mental growth being stunted on
account of poverty led malnutrition. India's food policy seeks to
achieve the social justice through its price, foodgrain production &
distribution policies; through the mechanism of world's biggest public
distribution system; through various poverty alleviation programmes,
in some of which foodgrains is distributed as part of the wages and
through programmes launching a direct attack on malnutrition. This
superimposition of social policy over the food policy to control, albeit
as minimal as possible, the freeplay of open market forces is nothing
peculiar in India; most of the countries do it. "The necessity for food
stamps programme in the U.S., however, suggests that market
oriented economies may never become rich enough for all consumers
to be able to afford adequate diets from their own earned incomes.
Even rich countries will have hungry people if there are not food
interventions" (Timmer, 1986). We will have, later on, an occasion to
refer to these programmes and policies as these have a strong bearing
on the status of the food and nutrition security scenario.
Emergence of a Comprehensive Food Policy in Independent
India
The food policy of independent India was examined by a Foodgrains
Policy Commission under the chairmanship of Sir Purshottam Das
Thakur Das in 1947 which submitted its report in April 1948. It came to
the conclusion that imports were necessary to enable maintenance of
central reserves to guard against crop failures and such reserve could
be of the tune of two million tons. It simultaneously recommended that
the commitment to maintain the rationing system, introduced during
the World War II, as also the need to import foodgrains, should be
liquidated in phases. The Commission also recommended that the
indigenous foodgrains production should be increased by 10 million
tons per annum till self sufficiency is achieved. Without saying so in as
many words, this Commission did ask the country to move towards the
first stage of national food security by attaining self sufficiency and can
be justifiably termed as the first major policy initiative towards the
achievement of food security. However in December 1947, all controls
on foodgrains, imposed in the wake of Bengal Famine and War, were
removed all at once. The time for such a dramatic reform was perhaps
not opportune and the weather Gods too were not willing to cooperate.
There were floods and crop losses. This resulted in steep rise in prices
of foodgrains and the controls were immediately reintroduced.
Independent India's first experiment with free market economy in
foodgrains was, thus, unsuccessful.
Food policy being necessarily a dynamic concept, the 1947 Foodgrains
Policy Commission was followed by a number of Commissions which
examined the food policy from time-to-time. The Foodgrains
Investigation Commission of 1949 again stressed self sufficiency.
Foodgrains Procurement Commission (1950) stressed on maintaining a
reasonable level of foodgrains prices to ensure adequate supplies to
consumers. To further protect the consumers, it recommended
rationing in all the towns with population of more than 50,000, informal
rationing in other towns and some regulated supply of grains in rural
areas. To carry out this, it recommended monopoly of foodgrains trade
in the hands of the Government with procurement at primary markets
and levy on the processors. One of the members, R.P. Noronha, gave a
dissenting note in which he pleaded for reducing the Government's
distribution commitments with sufficient proportion of total effective
demand to be met at controlled prices to act as a brake on rise of
prices, because according to him, "Democracy is essentially
Government by consent and consent to stringent measures ran only be
obtained in times of stress and for temporary periods. " He, thus,
suggested a policy of via-media, neither total control nor complete free
play of market forces. This has been, more or less, the bed-rock of food
policy all these years.
A spell of decontrol was again attempted in May 1952, when foodgrain
production jumped from 51.99 to 59.20 million tons. The rising trend in
food production was maintained up to 1956-57 with production
reaching a plateau of 66 to 69 million tons. However, there was a
decline of more than 5.5 million tons in 1957-58, forcing the
Government to set up the Foodgrains Enquiry Committee (1957) under
the eminent economist Ashok Mehta. The Committee criticised total
dismantling of food control mechanism as a hasty step, especially
when no buffer stocks were built during the years of good production.
It recommended maintenance of a buffer of 1.5 to 3 million tons. It also
suggested control on foodgrains trading; some regulation of
consumption; programmes to increase production but imports pending
self-sufficiency; establishment of Price Stabilisation Board; setting up of
a Foodgrains Stabilisation Board; setting up of a Foodgrains
Stabilisation Organisation to undertake purchase and sale operations
and constitution of a Central Food Advisory Council at the national
level.
The next and a very important landmark was setting up of the Food
Corporation of India (FCI) and the Agriculture Prices Commission in
1965. The former was to provide price support to farmers by
purchasing quantities that could not fetch minimum support prices in
the market, store the grains scientifically, move grains from surplus to
deficit areas and make available gains to states to feed the public
distribution system. The Agricultural Prices Commission (now known as
the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), a body on
which farmers are also represented, was to advise the Government on
price policy for agricultural commodities and evolve a balanced and
integrated price structure in the perspective of the overall needs of the
producers and the consumers. The Commission was, inter alia, to keep
in view the need to provide incentives to producers for adopting
technology for enhanced production; to ensure rational utilisation of
land and other productive resources; to take account of the likely effect
of the prices on the rest of the economy, broadly on the cost of living,
level of wages, industrial cost etc. and to also keep in view the terms of
trade between the agricultural sector and the nonagricultural sector.
These two vital instruments of food policy have come to stay since
1965 and have contributed greatly to the present day situation when
India can take pride in having achieved self sufficiency in foodgrains
and banished famines and starvations. To the extent the country
acquired self sufficiency, the food security-at least at the national level,
has also gone up dramatically but before we go on to that, it will be
better to examine as to how this self sufficiency was dependent on the
fluctuations in the agricultural production, which itself was very much
influenced by the behaviour and quantum of the monsoon rains.
Fluctuations in Foodgrains Production & Food Policy
It is necessary to touch upon the fluctuations in foodgrains production
at this juncture itself as these have greatly influenced the food policy. It
has already been mentioned as to how a complete decontrol was
attempted in 1947 and 1952 when he country had good harvest but
how the control were reintroduced when production declined and
prices started going up. Stabilization of production along with its
increase, therefore, became important goals for Indian agriculture. It
must also be appreciated at this juncture that great wisdom was
displayed by policy-makers when they kept the agriculture in private
sector, although time and again there were occasional pressures for
bringing a large part of Indian agriculture under cooperative sector, if
not in the public sector. Had the agriculture gone into public or
cooperative sector, we could not have reached the comfortable
situation as we have done presently.
The First Five Year Plan, launched in 1951, gave highest priority to
Agriculture and even though the investment priority shifted to
industries in the Second, the foundation laid by the First Plan continued
to be the guiding spirit for planning and implementation of agricultural
development programmes in India. The first Prime Minister of India,
Jawahar Lal Nehru, was convinced that there was no contradiction in
pursuing development of both agriculture and industry. "Ever since the
demand for the development of modern industry arose in India, we
have been told that India is preeminently an agricultural country and it
is in her interest to stick to agriculture. Industrial development may
upset the balance and prove harmful to her main business-agriculture.
The solicitude that British industrialists and economist has shown for
the Indian peasant is very gratifying... As if any Indian with an iota of
intelligence could forget the peasants. The Indian peasant is our main
focus and it is on his progress that India's progress depends. But crisis
in agriculture, grave as it is, is interlinked with crisis in industry, out of
which it arose. The two cannot be disconnected and dealt with
separately, and it is essential for the disproportion between the two to
be remedied." (Nehru, 1946). The results of such pragmatism are there
to be seen today in both agricultural & industrial sectors.
When India embarked on the path of planned economic development
in 1951-52, the total foodgrain production was just 51 million tonnes.
Within four decades or so, it is estimated to have reached 180 million
tonnes in 1993-94. The growth rate of foodgrains production in the
long term period 1949-50 to 1991-92 was 2.7% per annum, which was
somewhat higher than the population growth rate of 2.1% per annum
during the same period. It may be argued that growth rate of GDP
originating in Agriculture could have been even more, especially
against the background of many countries in Asia, notably China and
Indonesia, having been able to register much higher growth rates. It,
therefore, appears that whereas Indian agriculture did make a
quantum jump between 195152 and 1967-68 with foodgrain
production going up from 51 to 95 million tonnes, the growth in the
next two decades was not as impressive as made by some other
Countries. The production stagnated between 95 and 108 million
tonnes during the next 7 years but recorded another quantum jump in
1975-76, when it went up to 121 million tons. For next 12 years, it
hovered between 121 and 140 Metric tons. Post-1988 period again
witnessed a jump from 140 million tonnes in 1988 to almost 170
million tons in 1989, a massive increase of 40 million tonnes or 21% in
just one year. The tempo could not again be maintained and while the
production hovered around the level of 176 million tons achieved in
1988-89 for next two years, it dropped to only 168.4 million tonnes in
1991-92, a substantial decline of nine million tonnes as compared to
the previous year, forcing the Government to tie up import of three
million tonnes of wheat, the imports being resorted to after a gap of
four years. However, this import was just 1.8 percent of the net
production of foodgrains in that year and the country had no difficulty
in buying it by making cash down payment in US $. The agricultural
production again revived in 1992-93 and reached a healthy 180 million
tonnes. There is a likelihood of a small decline in 1993-94 with
expected production likely to be 179.1 million tons (Economic Survey
1993-94 p).
As was mentioned earlier, food insecurity is essentially caused either
by production or price fluctuations. It is a matter of concern that Indian
agriculture is still prone to substantial fluctuations. What is borne out
from the above, is that only a small abnormality in the quantum and
spread of monsoon rains can still create substantial ups and downs in
the agricultural production in India. Such fluctuations can be observed
even during the last six year period, starting from 1988-89, when the
country is seen to be enjoying average monsoon rains for these six
years in a row. The challenge, therefore, is stabilising production and
solution lies in expanding irrigation and making optimum use of
existing irrigation resources.
With the fluctuations in production and buffers being only small
fraction of total production, the per capita availability also
correspondingly fluctuates as can be seen from the table below:
Table 6 PRODUCTION AND AVAILABILITY OF ALL FOODGRAINS
AT ALL INDIA LEVEL
(in million
tonnes)
Year Net Net Change in Net Per Capita
Production Imports availability availability per
Govt. annum
Stocks (in Kg.)
1 48.1 4.8 0.6 52.3 144.1
951
1 78.2 7.4 1.0 84.6 175.3
965
1 65.0 8.7 0.2 73.9 146.5
967
1 94.9 2.0 2.6 94.3 171.1
971
1 105.9 0.7 10.7 95.8 155.3
976
1 131.6 0.6 - 1.6 133.8 163.7
986
1 122.8 3.4 - 4.6 130.8 163.7
988
1 148.7 1.2 - 2.7 147.2 180.5
989
1 149.7 1.3 6.2 144.8 173.9
990
1 154.3 - 0.6 - 4.3 158.1 186.5
991
1 146.2 0.8 - 3.5 150.5 173.9
992
Note : Net Production is Gross Production minus 12.5 for seed, food &
wastage.
Source: Economic Survey, Govt. of India, 1993-94 1991-92.
It will be seen from the table that it is only during one year i.e. 1991
that the availability of foodgrains crossed the recommended nutritional
norm of 182.5 Kg. per capita per annum. (cereals plus pulses intake for
male sedentary worker). However, the very next year it slipped down
to 173.9 kg; a level that was achieved way back in 1965. The
population explosion has obviously been the villian. If the estimated
foodgrains production of about 180 million tonnes in 1993 is confirmed
in final estimates, the availability will again rise to around 180 Kg. FAO
had estimated (1992) that the Index of food production in India (base
1979-78 = 100) did rise from 123 in 1987 to 147 in 1989 i.e. an
increase of 9.7 per cent per year but only by 1.3 percent per annum in
the period of next two years 1989-91. The per capita rise in the index
has been an unsatisfactory -0.96 per cent in the entire four year period
1987-91.
Buffer Stock Policy
The availability picture is thus one characterised by sharp fluctuations
and becomes an important element to be taken care of in India's food
policy. It is, therefore, necessary to use a part of the bumper
production of good years in the subsequent year(s) of lower production
by creating buffer stocks during favourable years and using such
stocks in the lean years. Buffer stocks also stabilise the intra-year
availability, taking care of the lean months. There are some critics of
buffer stocking policy of the Government of India, who argue that these
involve huge costs, as also some inevitable damage to stored grains
and, therefore, suggest imports, as and when required, as an
alternative. Practical experience has, however, shown that imports can
never provide that sort of the national food security for a big and
populous country like India, which buffer stocks can. Most importantly,
imports cannot be on the tap, as if imports of all the required
quantities will materialise as and when one wishes. There is not only a
lead time but in the absence of buffer stocks from which quantities can
be immediately released in the market, speculative tendencies will not
only have a field day in the domestic market but the country's
bargaining power in the international market would be seriously eroded
with the result that purchases may have to be made at high prices and
on the sellers terms. The money required will be in foreign exchange
whereas cost of buffer is at least in the domestic currency. Above all,
why is it that a natural calamity like drought, flood a cyclone can still
impair food security of the affected people very grievously in the
developing countries but as observed by Jon Bennett "No one in USA
starves when drought hits the mid West plains, for the country has
mountains of stored grains. And why does Japan still wants to produce
its own rice at great cost when it can buy any amount of rice any time.
The moral is try and have your own food buffer. Finally, in the absence
of buffer stocks, the nation is prone to be pressured economically as
well as politically-the autonomy of the country may itself be in the
danger of being impaired. (Jon Bennet, 1987) Buffer stocks provide
food security to nation and also give it the required strength and pride
at the global level. It has also been experienced that when India enters
the international market for imports, which necessarily have to be
substantial, the prices tend to harden. Further, the foodgrains,
especially rice, in this part of the world also suffers a decline and even
the availability goes down. During 1992, when India had to import,
Australia, which is the cheapest and ideal source, indicated their
inability to spare any quantities out of their 1991 harvest, which had
also gone down by 20 to 25 percent due to poor rains.
The Challenge for the Indian Agriculture
The challenge for the Indian agriculture that lies ahead is to not only
increase the agricultural production substantially but also to achieve
stability in it. The increase in production has to be achieved by
increasing the productivity since the cropped area has remained more
or less static at around 120-130 million hectares during the last 25
years. Latest data is available for the year 199091, when the cropped
area was reported to be 127.52 million hectares with per hectare yield
for foodgrains being only 1382 kg. Serious attention will have to be
given to rain fed crops especially coarse cereals, where new high
yielding varieties will have to be developed. In fact a second Green
Revolution for crops other than rice and wheat and for areas other than
Punjab, Haryana & W. Uttar Pradesh needs to be ushered in. That the
challenge has been accepted in the right spirit is clear from the goals
set out both by the Planning Commission and the Ministry of
Agriculture for the next fifteen years. Assuming growth rate of
population at 2% per annum up to 1997 and 1.8% for the next 10
years, the rate of increase in the demand for foodgrains, after taking
into consideration increase in demand on account of rise in incomes,
can be assumed to be 2.6% up to 1997 and 2.4% between 1997 and
2007. Based on these assumptions, the Ministry of Agriculture has
planned for a total production of 198 million tonnes by 1997 and 251
million tonnes by 2007 AD. This tallies more or less with the foodgrains
requirement estimated in the Eight Five Year Plan document which has
stated that "India will have an estimated 941 million people by 1997
AD. This will increase to 1102 million by 2007. With this population and
given improvements in consumption levels associated with growth in
incomes, the estimated foodgrains requirement for 1997 and 2007 will
be around 208 million tonnes and 283 million tonnes respectively".
These figures speak for themselves and the big challenge in the
attainment of food security is obvious.

4. Production & availability of cereals

4. Production & availability of cereals

Production and availability of cereals is proposed to be examined in
some details in this chapter because cereals happen to be the most
important source of energy and adequate availability of just cereals
themselves will go a long way in reducing hunger and poverty on one
hand and assuring food and nutrition security to people on the other
hand. An Inter-Ministerial Working Group set up in the Ministry of
Agriculture recently has observed that on the basis of average net
production of cereals for consumption during the last three years
199193, 1501 Kcal energy per capita per day is provided by cereals
alone. Taking average energy requirement of 2200 Kcal per capita per
day, cereals alone are providing about 68 per cent of the 'total energy
requirements. Above all, poverty itself is defined in terms of energy
intake. Besides, available cereals were also providing 37.4 gms. of
protein per capita per day which works to about 74.8 per cent of the
total average per capita daily requirement of protein of 50 gms.
(Working Group, Ministry of Agriculture, 1994).
As far as production of cereals is concerned, it is matter of great
satisfaction that India has achieved self sufficiency, more or less on a
sustainable basis. There may be a decline in production once in a while
due to climatic factors but gone are the days when frequent famines in
some part or other of the country were not too uncommon and were
known to have taken a toll of million of lives. The pre-independence era
was also characterised by an all pervading hunger among a large
section of the population. It was estimated by the Famine Inquiry
Commission in 1945 that as many as 30 per cent of the population
remained hungry. The British had not much time for removal of hunger
through increased cereals production. They were content with dealing
with intermediaries and were only interested in Indian Agriculture
producing raw material for their mills back home. Such raw material
had to be produced even if it meant, for example, transforming paddy
fields into robin dye fields. The intermediaries, in turn, were great
exploiters and had no interest in either investing or even encouraging
the cultivator to raise the harvests. It is, therefore, no wonder that the
well known economic historian Daniel Thorner observes that "when the
British withdrew from India in 1947, they left the country with perhaps
the world's most refractory land problem. For the upper classes who
were in a position to collect rents, lend out money at interest or trade
in agricultural commodities, the returns were so high that there was
little incentive to invest in cultivation proper. The vast majority of
cultivators never had a chance to accumulate for themselves enough
capital with which to become capitalist farmers". (P.C. Joshi in India's
Economic Development Strategies, Ed. Mongia & Vyas, 1986). The
extremely unjust land tenure system accompanied by the heavy
taxation of impoverished agricultural sector contributed to "the
permanent poverty of the Indian people".
India was importing substantial quantities of cereals even after
independence. Some bridging imports become necessary even now
but that now-a-days happens once in 4-5 years and the proportion of
imported grains is only a small fraction of what is indigenously
produced, even during the years of drought as can be seen from Table
No. 7.
Table 7 PRODUCTION AND IMPORT OF CEREAL
(in million
tonnes)
Year Total Net Percentage of
Production Import Imports to
Production
1 42.4 4.1 9.67
951
1 57.1 0.6 1.05
955
1 64.9 5.1 7.86
960
1 76.9 7.6 9.62
965
1 87.8 3.6 4.10
970
1 89.8 7.5 8.35
975
1 101.1 0.5 -
980
1 133.6 0.3 -
985
1 158.4 Neg -
990
1 166.4 2.4 1.44
993
Source: Directorate of Economics & Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture
(1992).
It can be observed from above table that in 1951, India imported as
high as 9.67 percent of domestic production of cereals which
proportion was repeated only in 1965 when the country had a very bad
harvest due to drought. In recent years import of wheat & rice was
made in 1988 (2 million tonnes of wheat and 0.8 million tonnes of rice)
and in 1992-93 (3 million tonnes of wheat and 0.14 million tonnes of
rice) and these quantities were only a small proportion of domestic
production of cereals.
Fluctuations in Cereals Production
It is no doubt a remarkable achievement to increase the cereal
production by more than three times between 1951 and 1993. Net
cereal protection went up from 40.1 million tonnes in 1951 to 145.6
million tonnes in 1993, the increase being 263 per cent over 42 years.
(Reference Table 8).
Agriculture almost all over the world suffers from fluctuating yields and
Indian agriculture is also very much characterized by substantial
fluctuations in production. In fact, depending on the cycle of good and
poor monsoon rains, the agricultural production, especially that of
cereals, also displays peaks and troughs and in between increasing or
decreasing trends. Such fluctuations are prevailing in recent years also
and if we observe the net production of cereals and their per capita
availability, as shown in Table 8, the effect of such fluctuations will
become evident:
Table 8 PRODUCTION & AVAILABILITY OF CEREALS IN RECENT
YEARS
Year Populati Net Net Change in Net Per
on Production Imports Govt. Capita
(Millions (Million (Million stocks availability
) tonnes) tonnes) (Million gins/day)
tonnes)
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 799.2 113.2 2.3 (-) 4.6 411.8
988
1 815.8 136.6 0.8 (+) 2.6 452.6
989
1 832.6 138.4 Neg. (+) 62 435.3
990
1 851.7 141.9 (-) 0 6 (-) 4.4 468.5
991
1 867.8 135.6 0.8 (-) 1.5 435.6
992
1 883.9 145.6 2.4 (+) 9.6 429.0
993
Note : Net Production has been taken as 87.5 per cent of gross
production.
Source: Economic Survey, 1993-94.
It will be observed from the above table that even in recent period of
last six years, the net per capita availability of cereals has seen wide
fluctuations. After the drought year 1987-88, it increased for 452.6
gins/capita/day in 1989, only to decline to 435.3 gms in the following
year and then reach a high of 468.5 gms in 1991. It has again declined
in 1992 and 1993. In fact, if we examine the per capita availability of
cereals since 1951, it is seen that the availability was over 400 gms
only in 1964, 1965, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1978, 1981, 1982
and from 1984 onward, it was always over 400 gms, the lowest during
19841993 being 411.8 gms in 1988, the year following one of the
worst droughts in recent history. This analysis indicate that per capita
availability of cereals has substantially improved over the years,
especially since 1988. Since the net availability has been calculated
after adjusting for imports/exports as also change in government
stocks, it can be safely presumed that availability picture can work as a
proxy for consumption of cereals in India. It, therefore, follows that the
per capita consumption of cereals has vasty improved over the years
and since a well off household cannot overconsume cereals, infect it
will consume less on its income increasing, the consumption of cereals
amongst even poor households must have substantially improved.
Whether such consumption was equal to or above the recommended
dietary intake (RDI) or not, is now required to be examined.
Average daily per capita net availability of energy (Kcal) and protein
from different food items during the biennium 1991-93 has been
worked out by the Inter-Ministerial Working Group set up by the
Ministry of Agriculture (April 1994) by averaging the production for the
biennium 1991-93, arriving at net availability by assigning certain
reduction percentage to cover seed, feed and wastages and assigning
the energy and protein values to each. The picture that emerges is
given in Table No. 9.
Table No. 9 AVAILABILITY OF FOODSTUFFS FOR CONSUMPTION
(TRIENNIUM 1991-93)
Food Item Total Daily Per Daily Per Daily Per
Availabilit Capita Capita Capita
y Avail. Energy Protein
 (Million (gms) Avail. availability
tons) (Kcal) (gms)
Rice 62.78 198.20 686 13.5
Wheat 47.48 149.90 519 17.7
Coarse 27.12 85.62 296 6.2
Grains
Sub GP Total 139.38 433.72 1501 37.4
Pulses 11.30 35.68 123 7.5
Edible Oils 6.20 19.57 176 0.0
Spices 1.87 5.90 14 0.6
Cashew nuts 0.29 0.92 5 0.2
Fruits 24.12 76.15 57 0.8
Vegetables 43.02 135.82 84 3.5
Fish 3.09 9.76 10 1.7
Meat 3.08 9.72 11 2.0
Milk 53.77 169.76 161 6.5
Eggs 1.05 3.31 6 4.6
Sugar 11.71 36.96 147 0.0
Jaggery 8.65 ~ 27.31 106 0.1
Grand Total 305.53 964.58 2400 64.9
Sources : Working Group, Ministry of Agriculture, April, 1994.
It can be observed from the above table that against the average
normative average requirement of energy for the entire population i.e.
2200 Kcal, the availability during the biennium 1991-93 has been 2400
and against the average normative protein requirement of 50 gms per
capita per day, the availability has been 64.9 gms. The Working Group
has also observed that the energy value of 64.9 gms of protein is 260
Kcal, a highly satisfactory Protein-Energy percentage of 9.2.
It will be also observed from the above table that 1501 Kcal energy
was being available from cereals alone and another 123 Kcal from
pulses, i.e. a total of 1624 Kcal from foodgrains. However, the Working
Group observed that "with increasing production of fruits and
vegetables and food of animal origin (milk, eggs, fish, meat)., the
average per capita demand for foodgrains (both cereals and pulses)
will remain stagnant or decline and the net daily average per capita
normative requirements of our population for foodgrains (cereals and
pulses) is not expected to exceed 1450 Kcal (i.e. 419 gms. at
physiological level and 493 gms at production) during the rest of the
current decade". The Working Group proceeded to explain away the
excess scenario. "It can be inferred that the quantities of foodgrains
stocks carried over by surplus farmers, households, traders and
processors must have increased". (Working Group, Ministry of
Agriculture, April, 1994).
If 1450 Kcal of energy from foodgrains in adopted as suggested by the
Working Group, it may be considered that 120 Kcal or 35
gm/capita/day was available from the pulses and the rest i.e. 1330 Kcal
from, 383 gms of cereals.
It is proposed to break foodgrain separately into cereals and pulses
because while there can be over consumption of pulses by
comparatively better off households, no such over consumption will
normally take place in case of cereals and average availability can be
truly representative of all the people in the country.
The production of rice, wheat and coarse grains totaling to production
of cereals has been as shown below:
Table No. 10 PRODUCTION OF CEREALS
(in million
tonnes)
Year Rice W Coarse Total Cereals
heat Grain
1 20.5 6.46 15.38 42.42
951 8
1 34.5 11.00 23.74 69.32
961 8
1 39.3 12.76 25.37 76.94
965 1
1 39.5 24.10 26.13 89.81
975 8
1 58.3 44.07 31.17 133.58
985 4
1 56.8 46.17 26.36 129.39
988 6
1 70.4 54.11 31.41 156.01
989 9
1 73.5 49.85 34.76 158.38
990 7
1 74.5 54.52 33.05 162.16
991 9
1 74.6 55.14 25.99 156.36
992 8
1 72.6 52.76 37.04 166.41
993 1
1 76.8 57.80 31.06 165.68
994 2
likel
y
Source: Directorate of Economics & Politics, Ministry of Agriculture,
GOI, May, 1992.
Of the total production of cereals given above, what quantities are
available for consumption at physiological level ? It is unexceptionable
that some quantities are lost at farm level, transportation and storage
at various levels and even at the kitchen level. Nutrition Advisory
Committees or Expert Group set up by the Indian Council of Medical
Research, which have been making their recommendations on the
Dietary Allowances for various nutrients since 1944 have been
adopting a certain percentage deduction. The latest recommendations
available are those made by the Expert Group in 1990. In respect of
cereals they have recommended an intake of 396 gins/capita/day at
physiological level. In order to make available this, quantity required at
retail and production level is 436 and 490 gms. respectively. It means
that a deduction of 23.7 per cent has to be made from production
figures to arrive at the quantity available for consumption at
physiological level. We may call it scenario I.
The most recent Inter-Ministerial Working Group on Foodgrains
Requirement up to 2000 AD set up by the Ministry of Agriculture (Apr.,
1994) has however suggested a deduction of 15% in case of cereals.
Although the report does not mention the considerations that have
gone into for adopting this standard, perhaps the improvement in
transportation and storage infrastructure and services coupled with
sustained campaign to reduce post-harvest losses has made this group
arrive at a figure of 15 per cent. While at the National Institute of
Nutrition, Hyderabad, I had detailed discussions on this topic with the
Director, Dr. Vinodini Reddy. It so happened that she was a member of
the Working Group set up by the Ministry of Agriculture (April 1994) as
also of the Expert Groups of ICMR. It transpired that the Nutrition
Advisory Committees/ Expert Group of ICMR did not have their own
data on the deduction factor to be used and they simply adopted a
percentage suggested by the Ministry of Agriculture. She felt that if the
Ministry of Agriculture is now suggesting a reduction of 15% from
production stage to physiological stage, there may be no objection to
that. As discussed a couple of paragraphs earlier, the requirements of
cereals adopted by this group was 383 gins/capita/day. Let us call this
Scenario II.
The quantity of cereals available for actual consumption at
physiological level during last 3 years has now been calculated
adopting the two sets of reduction factors and per capita daily
requirements. Two scenarios about adequacy of cereals availability that
emerge are tabulated below:
Table No. 11 PHYSIOLOGICAL LEVEL AVAILABILITY AND
REQUIREMENT OF CEREALS
(Qty. in million
tonnes)
Year Total Scenario I Scenario II
Cerea Availabil Availabil Requirem Availabil Availabil Requireme
l ity with ity after ent @ ity with ity after nt @
Prod. Reductio adjustm 396 gms Reductio adjustm 383 gms
n factor ent of capita/ n factor ent of per capita
23.7% net day 15% net daily
import & imports
change &
in change
Govt. in
stocks Govt.
stocks
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 162.1 123.73 127.83 123.10 137.84 141.94 119.56
991 6
1 156.3 119.30 122.00 125.36 133.91 136.60 121.25
992 6
1 166.4 126.97 119.77 141.45 141.45 134.25 123.57
993 1
Note: Adjustment for net imports and change in Govt. Stocks has been
adopted from Economic Survey, 1993-94.
Source:
1. Population: Working Group Representative (Min. of Agriculture,
1994)
2. Food Production: ESA, Ministry of Agriculture.
3. Reduction Factor 23.7% ICMR, 1990.
4. Reduction Factor 15% Working Group Repd. (Min. of
Agriculture).
5. Requirement @ 396 ICMR (1990).
6. Requirement @ 383 Working Group, Min.of Agriculture (1994).
An analysis of the data given in the Table No. 11 above for the last
three years (1991-93) throws up, as expected, two different pictures
under the two different scenarios and these are discussed below:
Scenario I
A comparison of data in Col.4 and Col.5 indicates that net availability
of cereals for physiological consumption in 1991 was more than the
requirement and worked out to 103.8 per cent of the requirement. In
the following year, 1992, the net availability was slightly less than the
requirement, being 97.3 per cent. In 1993, the availability declined and
was only 84.7 per cent of the requirement. The picture is thus a mixed
one, little more in 1991, slightly less in 1992 and still lesser in 1993.
The stocks held back and in the pipe line may also be making some
difference as these are never same in all the years. Of course, change
in stocks held by the government has already have taken care of in
Cols 4 along with net imports. However, no estimates of stocks held
back by surplus farmers, traders and processors are maintained. As far
as traders are concerned, and also surplus farmers to some extent, the
stocks held back by them are higher in the years of shortages and
lower in the year of plenty. We can, therefore, total up the net
availability and requirement from the three years 1991-93. It transpires
that total availability of cereals during this biennium was 369.60 million
tonnes whereas requirements was 389.91 million tonnes. This, with
average satisfaction level of about 95 percent, is a fairly comfortable
situation even though stiffer standards of both reduction factor and
higher norms of per capita consumption have been used. In other
words, against the recommended daily per capita consumption of 396
gms of cereals, the average net availability in the three year period
has been 376 gms.
Scenario II
While scenario I was based on the reduction factor of 23.7 per cent
from production to physiological consumption level and daily per capita
consumptional requirement of 396 gms (ICMR, 1990), Scenario II is
based on the recent report of the inter-ministerial Working Group
(Ministry of Agriculture, April, 1994) which has used a reduction factor
of 15 per cent and recommended an average daily per capita
consumptional requirement of 383 gms for cereals for a period up to
2000 AD. Columns 7 and ~ in Table No.11 can be compared to examine
the availability and requirement of cereals under this Scenario. It will
be observed that in all the three years, 1991-93, the net availability
has been substantially higher than the requirement. It has, in fact been
119.2, 112.7 & 108.6 per cent of the requirement. If we take a total
picture of the three year period, the net availability of cereals has been
412.79 million tonnes or, in other words, the availability has been
113.4 per cent of the requirement. This gives an exceedingly bright
picture but some questions need to be answered before the report of
this recent Working Group can be finally accepted by the Working
Group which is likely to be set up by the Indian Planning Commission to
go into the demand and supply figures for foodgrains at a higher and
more technical level. Some of the questions that may be posed are:
What is the basis for adopting reduction factor of 15 per cent ? While
storage and transportation facilities have gone up, the higher
production of animal based food items may also have increased the
quantum of cereals going into feed sector. Further, if about 13 per cent
cereals are being produced over and above the nutritional
requirements and exports are insignificant, are the Indians over
consuming the cereals ? The explanation sought to be given is that
'carried over stocks at the level of households, surplus farmers and
traders must have increased substantially during recent years in too
simplistic. Foodgrain except national buffers, are not normally stored
by anybody even after the next harvest. During years of good
production and comfortable availability, as is the situation during these
three years, nobody, hoards foodgrains unnecessarily and in fact, the
year end stocks should in all probability, be very small and of the same
quantum in all the three such years. Lastly, cereals do not lend
themselves to over consumption by better off households. While poor
households would increase their consumption up to nutritional
standards and even beyond that slightly due to non-availability and
non-access to other food items, this will be more than compensated by
the decline in the quantity of cereals consumed by households whose
incomes are on the upswing. This assumption is unexceptionable and
the following data on share of total consumer expenditure of Quintiles
in urban and rural areas (National Sample Survey Organisation,
Planning Commission, Govt. of India, 43rd Round-July 1987 to June
1988) brings this out quite clearly.
Household Food Security & Consumption Expenditure
Distribution of per capita monthly consumer expenditure obtained by
NSSO during their 43rd Round (Jul 87-June 88) is given below
separately for rural and urban areas:
Table No. 12 SHARE OF TOTAL MONTHLY CONSUMER
EXPENDITURE
Quantiti Cere Pulses, Food Non food Fuel & Other
es al Vegetable, goods goods Light misc.
Meat, Egg., goods &
Fish etc. services
(PVM)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Rural India
Q1 41.52 13.74 18.51 7.25 10.45 6.28
Q2 36.93 14.01 20.32 9.30 9.23 7.18
Q3 32.13 13.77 22.08 11.59 8.49 8.10
Q4 26.50 13.15 23.52 15.21 7.71 9.35
Q5 16.17 10.56 22.85 28.75 5.55 11.99
Urban India
Q1 24.48 14.76 25.37 12.35 8.78 11.04
Q2 21.90 14.48 25.86 13.92 8.41 12.14
Q3 19.24 14.17 26.53 15.60 7.93 13.05
Q4 16.93 13.96 27.07 17.18 7.51 13.77
Q5 14.75 13.50 27.22 18.99 7.12 14.94
Source: NSSO, 43rd Round (Jul 87-June 88).
It is quite apparent from above that the Quintile one, the lowest
income group in rural areas, spends as high as 41.52 per cent of their
incomes on cereals, whereas the highest spends only 16.17 per cents.
In urban areas, the corresponding shares are 24.48 and 14.75 per cent.
As incomes rise the household first try to earmark larger share of
income to purchase cereals and stave off the hunger and then start
spending more on pulses, foods from animal origin, food goods and
other goods and services.
The NSSO data of various rounds as given below, on the other hand,
shows as to how the share of expenditure on cereals has been going
down both in Rural and Urban areas.
Table No.13 SHARE OF MONTHLY EXPENDITURE IN CEREAL
OVER A PERIOD
Rural Period Rural Areas Urban Areas
Cereal PVM Other Cereal PVM Other
s s s s
27 (Oct.72- 40.77 9.98 49.25 23.28 11.0 65.69
Sep.73) 3
32 (Jul.77-Jun.78) 32.81 10.2 56.92 20.43 11.4 68.14
7 3
38 (Jan-Dec.83) 32.41 11.2 56.33 19.56 11.8 68.63
6 1
43 (Jul.87-Jun.88) 26.12 12.4 61.48 14.78 12.1 73.06
0 6
44 (Jul.88-Jun.89) 26.14 12.9 60.90 15.44 12.5 71.93
6 8
45 (Jul.89-Jun.90) 23.95 13.4 62.61 14.19 12.1 73.69
4 2
Source: NSSO, 27th 45th Round. Note: PVM group includes pulses,
vegetables and milk etc.
The macro national level trends indicated by the Tables 12 and 13
above, more or less hold good for various states. To illustrate, the table
below gives the proportion of per capita monthly consumer
expenditure for three selected states. Selected states are Punjab (the
state with highest per capita income and least proportion of population
below poverty line), Maharashtra (the state in the middle of the
rankings of states by proportion of people below poverty line) and
Orissa (the state with the maximum proportion of poor. To save space,
data on only three relevant groups of consumer expenditure out of six
viz. cereals, PVM and food goods is being given:
Table No. 14 DISTRIBUTION OF PER CAPITA MONTHLY
CONSUMER EXPENDITURE IN PUNJAB, MAHARASHTRA & ORISSA
Round Punjab (Least Maharashtra Orissa
poor) (Middle) (poorest)
No/Yr. Cer. PVM FG Cer. PVM FG Cer. PVM FG
27/72- 16.75 7.85 42.61 38.87 5.17 22.75 52.1 11.0 13.07
73 8 2
32/77- 15.93 7.29 37.18 23.09 8.41 18.84 49.4 10.7 12.50
78 9 2
38/1983 14.85 8.17 37.23 25.60 12.12 25.59 50.4 11.3 15.29
8 2
43/87- 10.99 7.98 30.12 18.97 12.82 24.06 41.3 13.6 13.97
88 9 8
44/88- 11.78 8.96 28.38' 20.72 13.33 24.87 39.3 14.9 14.89
89 6 4
45/89- 10.24 8.72 28.80 18.81 14.03 26.19 39.1 16.3 15.29
90 7 9
Source: NSS, 27th to 45th Round
It can be observed from the above table that the percentage of
expenditure on cereals has come down in all the three states, the
decline being approximately 39% in Punjab, 20% in Maharashtra and
25% in Orissa. Lower base of only 16.75% expenditure and a steep
decline of 39% in Punjab is quite understandable, it being a very well
off state in all aspects, Orissa, the poor state on the other hand, had
even at the latest round (1989-90), a high proportion of expenditure on
cereals (39.17%) which in fact was obtainable in middle ranking states
of Maharashtra some 18 years back in 1972-73.
Some very significant conclusions can be drawn from the data shown
in the Tables 12 to 14. These are:
(a) Between Oct. 72 and June 90, roughly about a period of 18
years, the proportion of monthly house hold expenditure on
cereals declined in rural areas from 40.77% to 23.95% i.e., a
drop of more than 70 per cent. In the same period, the decline in
urban areas was from 23.08% to 14.19% i.e. by 63 per cent.
These declines point to general prosperity and improved
household food security as people have been able to spare more
money for other consumption items. At the same time, while
there may have been short spells of shortage of foodgrains
resulting in higher open market prices, the public distribution
system and the 'food for work type' or plain and simple
employment generation schemes, must have helped people to
tide over such periods of stresses. There were no serious reports
of starvation, food-shortage driven migration and famine. It is
also to be appreciated that any situation of food shortage and
starvation would not go unnoticed in India because of a vigorous
 and free press and political parties who are on the look out of
any issue on which the party in power can be embarrassed.
(b) Higher percentage of monthly consumer expedition on
cereals in the rural areas as compared to urban areas, confirms
that the problem of poverty is much more pronounced there,
forcing people to spend much more on cereals.
(c) With decline in expenditure on cereals, the expenditure on
PVM (Pulses, Vegetables, Milk, Eggs, Mutton etc.) group has
shown an increase in rural areas. This is a welcome sign and
indicates movement towards a more balanced diet. In urban
areas, the increase in the share of expenditure on PVM group has
been rather modest, just about 10 per cent as compared to
about 35 per cent in rural areas. It indicates the rural households
are able to diversify their diets much more than their
counterparts in urban areas. However this substantially bigger
increase in rural areas could also be on account of some food
items, like seasonal fruits, nonmarketed green or other
vegetables, etc. which were consumed without having to buy
them are now getting marketed and households have to pay for
them, In this connection, the example of mangoes in Indo-
Gangetic belt, stretching from Delhi to West Bengal comes to
mind. Even some 40-45 years back, the whole village used to
spend hot summer days in Mango groves and families used to
eat traditional small varieties of mangoes from the buckets
where mangoes used to be soaked in water. All the mango
groves have now been converted into commercialised mango
orchards and the entire orchards are sold out to businessmen
well in advance, whose guards will not allow even a single mango
to be eaten by children of the villages free of cost. This again
seems to be the price that has to be paid for market driven
economic development and with income levels not rising fast
enough, even the small luxuries in life like, mangoes, are getting
beyond the reach of poor households.
The long and short of this exercise is that cereals availability is now
more than required if the report of the Working Group (Ministry of
Agriculture, Apr. 194) is to be followed. This cereals availability is
almost 95 per cent of the required even if the old standards of the
Expert Group (ICMR, 1990) regarding the reduction factor between
production and consumption and per capita daily requirement of
cereals are adopted. Adequate availability of cereals would have a
highly positive impact on household food and nutrition security. It is
hoped that the percentage of people living below poverty line will
sharply decline when the Planning Commission of India revises its
earlier estimates of 1987-88. It is also hoped that the consumption
pattern and the extent of malnutrition which is presently available from
the recent surveys conducted by the National Nutrition Monitoring
Bureau of the National Institute of Nutrition will also throw up a
different and much more brighter picture when the results as
compared to the one given by their earlier two rounds of surveys
during 1975-79 and then 1988-90.
Apart from the NSSO data, we also have data thrown up on
expenditure pattern by the surveys conducted by the National Nutrition
Monitoring Board of the NIN. It has been found that 63.8 per cent of
expenditure was on food items in rural areas and it was 57.1 percent in
urban areas. (Nutrition Trends in India NIN, 1993).
EXPEDITURE PATTERN
The picture thrown up by NNMB surveys of 1991 naturally is not
exactly the same as shown by NSSO surveys. Further, in the NSSO
data, expenditure has been shown separately for following food-related
groups-cereals, PVM and food goods. In NNMB surveys the entire
expenditure on food as a whole has been clubbed together. The NSSO
surveys show 60.96% as the above mentioned three food-related
groups for rural areas during Jul.89-Jnu.90 whereas NNMB surveys
indicates expenditure as food as 68%. Similarly, for urban areas too,
NSSO figure is 51.6% whereas NNMB figure is 57.1%. Thus, even
though those two surveys have been done by two different
organisations with different sample families, the expenditure pattern is
not too different and both indicate more or less the same situation
prevailing in rural and urban areas.
The extent of consumption of cereals and other food items by people
against recommended dietary intake (RDI) should have a direct
correlation with extent of poverty amongst such people. However, the
consumption data culled from the NNMB surveys in various states does
not show such correlation, when compared with poverty ranking of the
states:
Consumption of Foodstuffs & Poverty
It can be observed from the above figure that consumption of cereals is
exactly equal to RDI (as given in Table 30) in case of Kerala whereas it
is higher than RDI is all the states shown here. What is surprising is
that consumption of cereals at 628 gms/cu/day in Orissa is not only
very much higher than RDI of 460 gms/cu/day, but it happens to be
highest in the country. How is this when Orissa had 44.7% of its of
people living below poverty line ? Of course, Orissa is somewhat
surplus in foodgrains production but in a single zone national market, it
does not mean all the cereals produced in Orissa are consumed there
itself. Similarly, consumption of cereals in Bihar at 481 gms is very
much higher than RDI, although Bihar is not only the second most poor
state in the country (from the point of view of proportion of people
below poverty line) but is a highly deficit state also. The consumption
surveys of NNMB, therefore, cannot be taken on their face value, the
only purpose they serve is to reiterate that cereals availability and
consumption situation is quite comfortable.
Consumption of as high as 494 gms cereals per capita per day in
Punjab also is not easily explainable. An average Punjabi is known to
consume quite a lot of milk (confirmed by NNMB survey being highest
in the country at 396 gms against RDI of 150 gms) and milk products,
vegetables, fruits etc. but notwithstanding this, it appears that an
average person in Punjab is consuming lot of cereals also perhaps for
maintaining his or her high vigour. Residents of Punjab are also known
to be taller and heavier than average Indian. But consumption of
substantially higher quantity of cereals even by an average resident
from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa and most of the other states (not
shown in figure 2. above) raises a question whether the RDI of 460
gms/cu/day at physiological level requires fresh examination and
revision. The RDI prescribed for Indians should also have some parity
with that recommended for people in at least neighbouring countries,
especially China. Incidentally, as shown in Table 1, the Dietary Energy
Supply for average Chinese in terms of calories per capita per day
during the period of 1986-86 was as high as 2637 (FAO Report, 1990-
92).
That the consumption of pulses is much less than RDI is clearly brought
out. Surprisingly, Orissa, the bottom state in poverty scale, has
consumption of pulses more or less equal to the RDI level. It is lower
than RDI even in Punjab. Consumption of pulses is higher than RDI only
in Uttar Pradesh (45 gms) and Madhya Pradesh (43 gms/cu/day).
Milk consumption is higher than RDI only in case of Punjab. In all the
other states it is substantially lower than RDI. In case of Kerala also, a
state with fairly low proportion of poor and with fairly high per capita
income as also the highest literacy, has an extremely low milk intake of
18 gms against recommended 150 gm/cu/day.
The consumption of fats & oils also is lagging behind the RDI. Against
RDI of 20 gms/cu/day, it is 17 and 14 even for Punjab and Kerala
respectively but again, rather surprisingly, 16 for Orissa. It is only 4 for
Uttar Pradesh and 7 for Bihar. In fact, consumption of fats and oils is
higher than RDI only in case of Gujarat (not shown here), 21
gins/capita/day.
Consumption pattern surveys of the NNMB, therefore, do not help very
much is finding out the actual picture about consumption of even these
four food items. The problem perhaps was that these were carried out
only in nine states, samples were small and response of the
respondent was probably inaccurate. It is not improbable that the
respondents either had no definite idea of the quantity of these items
consumed in the family or even may have indicated inflated quantities
to keep up their social prestige in the village community. However, as
far as consumption of cereals is concerned, these surveys reconfirm
the picture of at least fairly comfortable availability.

5. Poverty, purchasing power & food

security
The National Nutrition Policy has recently been formulated in India.
Appropriately, it starts with the adverse impact of poverty on
nutritional status of people. "Widespread poverty resulting in chronic
and persistent hunger is the single biggest scourge of the developing
world today. The physical expression of this continuously re-enacted
tragedy is the condition of under-nutrition which manifests itself among
large section of the poor, particularly among the women and children.
This condition of under nutrition, therefore, reduces work capacity and
productivity amongst adults and enhances mortality and morbidity
amongst children. Such reduced productivity translates into reduced
earning capacity, leading to further poverty and the vicious cycle goes
on. " (NNP 1993)
THE VICIOUS CYCLE OF POVERTY
Poverty related issues have always been a matter of greatest concern
for the developing countries, which are having a running battle with
this scourge. Of late, especially since the second half of the eighties,
these issues have also started disturbing those thinkers, political
activists, policy makers etc. in the developed countries and the
economists working in international organisations, who feel that such
stark contradiction in respect of such a basic requirement of human life
cannot go on and it is for the good of the entire mankind that poverty,
hunger and wastages of human lives is banished from the entire face
of the earth as early as possible. Food for all and the food and nutrition
security have at least started getting talked about and these efforts
have finally led to adoption of a World Declaration and Plan of Action
for Nutrition at Rome in December 1992. The structural adjustment
programmes undertaken in many countries have also forced policy
makers and intellectuals to consider impact of these adjustments on
the nutritional status of people. "In particular, in the second half of the
decade, the need for special attention to poverty issues induced or
overlooked by adjustment programmes was widely acknowledged in
Bank (World) documents. One component of current approach to
poverty with adjustment is an attention to investments in human
capital in general and nutrition in particular, More concretely, future
interventions might benefit from continued assessment of whether
explicit nutrition programmes are more appropriate than broad policy
considerations, whether targeted programmes are more effectively
implemented than broad based measures in all environments and
whether nutrition is best promoted by food policy and food oriented
subsidies or by health and sanitation programmes (Alderman, 1992).
Of course, the policies will differ from country to country and will
depend largely on the complexities of problems and resources
endowment of different countries. As far as India is concerned, it has
opted for an integrated policy. Till the end of IVth Plan, India's main
emphasis was on the aggregate growth of the economy and reliance
was placed on the percolation effects of growth. "In the face of
continuing poverty and malnutrition, an alternative strategy of
development, comprising a frontal attack on poverty, unemployment
and malnutrition became a national priority from the beginning of the
V Plan. This shift in strategy has given rise to a number of inter-
ventions to increase the purchasing power of the poor; to improve the
provision of basic service to the poor and to devise a security system
through which the most vulnerable sections of the poor, viz. women &
children, can be protected". (NMP, 1993)
Food & Purchasing Power
Household food security is a function not only of availability of food but
also of the purchasing power available with each household. It has now
been well established that at the global level availability of food is not
a problem. Even at our national level, availability of foodgrains is not
the real problem, it is prevailing poverty amongst a large number of
household that comes in the way of achieving households food
security. There may be abundance of food but it is no help to the poor
households if it has no access to that. "There is no assurance of
deliverance from hunger unless those charged with the tasks of
governing him (the poor) take conscious and deliberate steps to
channel that abundance in his direction so that he can absorb the little
he needs". (Vanugopal, 1992). It will, therefore, be worthwhile to see as
to what is the status of poverty in India that impairs the purchasing
power, which ultimately results in food-insecure households and what
programmes have been launched to combat it.
It is said that India has achieved self-sufficiency in the matter of
foodgrains but what exactly one means when one says this. To my
mind, in our case it loosely refers to the fact that India is no longer
required to import foodgrains and can even export some and even
when it has to resort to imports once in a while, it is a very small
quantity and that too only once in a while. For example, in the current
decade, India imported two million tons of wheat and 0.6 million tons
or rice in 1988 and 3 million tons of wheat and 0.2 million tons of rice
in 1992, both these imports coming after a gap of four years. Thus,
even when it was required to import cereals, such imports were only
around 1.5% of the total foodgrains produced in India. India has,
therefore, achieved self sufficiency in foodgrains production in that
particular manner of speaking. It certainly can legitimately take pride
in being able to manage the existing demand for foodgrains with
indigenous production. But what about the suppressed demand, the
demand that should have been there but it is not there due to
poverty ? Effective demand and consequent consumption of required
quantity of foodgrains is not what it should be; otherwise millions
would not have been below poverty line, not being able to consume at
least minimum levels of calories even if we keep other nutrients out of
consideration for the time being. Many of the households, have,
therefore, inadequate access of foodgrains and are food insecure to
that extent. The root cause of such non-access or food in-security is
poverty and one has to understand this in order to appreciate the
contradiction between food self sufficiency on the one hand and
prevailing malnutrition on the other. This lack of access or lack of
purchasing power has been forcefully brought out by Amartya Sen
when he describes it as deprivation due to non-entitlement or "the
inability of certain people to command food through the legal means
available in the society, including the use of production possibilities,
trade opportunities, entitlement vis-a-vis the State and other methods
of acquiring food" (Amartya Sen, 1981). He goes on to say that a
"person starves either because he does not have the ability to
command enough food or because he does not use this ability to avoid
starvation." In India, large scale unemployment is a great aggravating
factor and in conjunction with rapidly growing population, severely
impairs the purchasing power of a large number of households or
forces the families to acquire purchasing power at a certain social cost
like child labour. The magnitude of the problem can be imagined when
we find that" unemployment which w as of the order of 2-3 crores (23
million) during the beginning of Eighth Plan in 1992, is expected to
increase by another 3.5 crores by the end of the plan in 1997, implying
an increase of 7 hundred thousand unemployed each year in the
country. With the introduction of NEP (New Economic Policies) and the
arrival of multinationals and, along with the open markets, the
resulting international competition will force induction of more
sophisticated & modern technologies which are known to employ
greater automation and lesser man power". (KB Sahay, 1994). The
country will have to face this menace with all the capacity at its
command & no wonder, that the Prime Minister, while delivering his
address at Harvard during his recent visit to USA has observed that, "In
developed countries, the income of unemployed is protected through
social welfare; yet social problem constantly arise...Compensated
employment cannot be a substitute for employment. Unemployment
becomes a symbol of rejection, of being unwanted in society." (Prime
Minister Narsirnha Rao, as quoted by Vir Singhvi, 1994). India has to
find employment for its teeming millions. Let us also see who are these
"poor" households which, on account of their poverty, are unable to
effectively register their demand and purchase even the minimum
quantity of foodgrains required for the entire family's nutritional well-
being. These are essentially said to be those living below the poverty
line. Quite a lot has already been written about the concept of the
poverty line but it is necessary of briefly dwell on the concept here. In
fact, the definition of poverty itself and the yardstick to measure it are
matters of intense ideological and technical controversy. To complicate
the issue further, the measure of poverty line itself is not able to
adequately describe the "extent" of poverty of a large variety of people
living within that "line". However, in a layman's language, people who
have to go to bed hungry; people who do not know whether they will
get work the next day; people who do not possess minimum clothes to
wear; people who have no access to potable water and the very
primary health care and people who do not have a shelter over their
heads are the poor people. The poor consist of not only the very poor
who are as clearly visible in a society as 'a raw wound on a bare human
body' but also those in whose case the raw visible manifestations of
poverty are not noticeable at the first sight and who suffer from under-
employment; non availability of regular wage earnings; farmers at risk;
cultivators farming in risk areas prone to drought, floods, and people
forced to migrate etc. and so on. There could also be households,
albeit a small number, which could have afforded enough food for the
entire family if first priority was given to food or where the male
provider of the family is a drunkard or where some members do not
get adequate food due to gender bias. However, while providing a
reasonable standard of living to all may take some time, at least
adequate food to all individuals has to be quickly assured. Without
adequate food, people cannot break the vicious cycle of poverty. Thus,
in our country, poverty has greatly influenced food insecurity and we
have, therefore, to determine the poverty line with relation to calories
to be consumed. Accordingly! those people who do not have a daily
calorie intake of 2100 kcal or more in urban areas and 2400 kcal or
more in rural areas are said to be living below the poverty line. These
calorie requirements are converted into per capita consumption
expenditure i.e. "minimum money requirement of a person, which,
considering a person's consumption pattern, will ensure sufficient food
intake for satisfying average calorie needed." (Gupta SP in India's Econ.
Dev. Strategies, Ed. Mongia, 1986). In 1987-88, the rural poverty line,
in terms of percapita monthly expenditure was Rs. 131.80. Families
found, during surveys, to be having consumption expenditure less than
the required are considered to be living below the poverty line. Of
course, the ideal thing would have been to measure poverty against a
set of parameters which go to make a "life of good quality", at least a
life with minimum standard of living. In other words, not only food and
nutrition security for all but also good healthy drinking water, choice of
a balanced diet, a reasonable house, proper clothes to wear and
access to education, health and employment. This is, of course,
beyond the scope of this presentation. However, the average incidence
of rural poverty conceals wide interstate differences which suggests
that greater attention needs to be paid to the regions which have
greater concentration of poor. (Eighth Five Year Plan, Min of R.D.). The
figure below shows the proportion of people living below poverty line,
both in various states and in India as a whole:
PERCENTAGE POPULATION BELOW POVERTY LINE
It will he observed from the above that surveys prior to 1987-88 and
results published by the Planning Commission estimated that 29.4
percent of the people in India were living below the poverty line. The
earlier estimates were of 1983-84 when the Planning Commission had
estimated that proportion of below poverty line (BPL) population was
37.4 percent. Thus in percentage terms, the BPL population dropped by
8 percentage points during the decade in question. It will also he
observed that there are wide variations amongst the states within the
country. While Punjab has only 7.2 percent people below poverty line,
Orissa has as many as 44.7 percent. It is also worth noting that while a
food deficit state like Kerala has only 17 percent BPL population, for a
substantially food surplus state like Uttar Pradesh, the figure is as high
as 35.1 percent. This only proves the point, that even in situation when
adequate food is available, large number of people are not able to gain
access to it-cannot encash their entitlement in the words of Amartya
Sen.
It has to be, however, appreciated that the figures of population below
poverty line (BPL), as given above, have become outdated now. These
are as published in the year 1987-88 and based on surveys undertaken
prior to that. It is understood that the new figures will he available
during the latter part of this year itself. When those are published, it is
quite likely the proportion of BPL population will sharply decline. This
assumption is essentially based on the fact that per capita availability
of cereals, which alone give around 70 per cent of calories, has in
recent years been even more than recommended levels and better off
people cannot be eating more than recommended levels to lift up the
averages. The other factors which will also contribute are: (i) increased
purchasing power with poor due to various poverty alleviation
programmes (ii) increased production/availability of non-food items
providing energy; (iii) improved drinking water and health care
facilities; (iv) revamping of PDS to focus on poor areas (v) data showing
a decline in proportion of per capita consumer expenditure an cereals
etc. Such reduction in BPL population will also he able to explain the
contradiction, brought out starkly in case of Orissa, between higher
than required availability of cereals and of the population consuming
less than the required levels of energy as brought out in the NNMB
surveys, even though there was enhanced energy intake among the
children up to 6 years age. These factors will he discussed in greater
details in the appropriate chapters and we can, for the time being,
proceed to examine various programmes that constitute the frontal
attack on poverty.
Poverty Alleviation Programmes
Banishing the poverty from the face of the country is one of the most
cherished goals of India's development planning. It is felt by almost all
the policy framers and the experts that the predominant thrust of
development in rural areas should be on generation of higher growth
by rapid acceleration in the growth of agriculture and allied activities
and a rapid increase in production jobs. Some economists (Mongia,
1986) have calculated that a minimum rate of growth of four percent in
the rural economy will be necessary in order to reduce the absolute
number of rural poor. It will also be necessary to pointedly direct the
poverty alleviation programme towards economically weaker sections
of the rural people. In the urban sector, where rate of growth is, in all
probability, expected to be rapid and higher than the rate of growth of
population, deliberate redistributive policies, including what are
nowadays popularly referred to those providing a safety net to the
poor, need to be put in place. This will ensure that such growth is not
consumed entirely by the richer section of the population, in short- the
social engineering within the economic policy framework.
We can now take a brief look at the progress so far made in reducing
the proportion of people living below the poverty line, before we move
on to social distributive policies like poverty alleviation programmes
and public distribution system. It is observed that the proportion of
people below poverty line has been declining since early seventies,
when the rural poverty started getting a sharply focused attention in
our developmental strategies. However, there is some dispute about
the number of people living below the poverty line as can be observed
from the tables given below :
Table 15 PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION LIVING BELOW POVERTY
LINE
Area 1972-73 1977-78 1983-84 1987-88
Rural 54.1 51.2 40.0 33.4
Urban 41.2 38.2 28.1 20.1
Combined 51.5 48.3 37.4 29.4
Source: Planning Commission
Area 1972-73 977-78 1983-84 1987-88
Rural 56.4 53.1 45.6 39.1
Urban 49.2 47.2 42.2 40.0
Combined 54.9 51.8 44.8 39.3
Source: Report of the Expert Group set up by Plancom July,
1993.
It will be evident from the above, that there is some difference in the
above two sets of data although the percentage of poor has declined
according to both. Percentage of people below poverty line, both in
rural and urban areas, has declined by 21.6 percentage points as per
the estimate of the planning Commission between 1972-73 and 1987-
88, whereas it declined by 15.6 percent points according to the
estimate of the Expert group. Considering the handicaps that a big
developing country like India has to face, a decline of even 15.6
percentage points is not too bad and if it is 21.6 percentage points, it is
quite commendable. This points to an improved household food
security scenario. The worrying thing, however, is that even if the
estimate of 29.9% are taken as correct, in absolute terms around 240
million people roughly 48 million households were still living below the
poverty line in India in 1987-88. As per 43rd round of NS Survey
conducted in 1988-89, 196 million persons i.e. 36 million families were
living below the poverty line in rural areas. A vast majority of Indian
poor, thus, live in rural areas. This not only puts in correct perspective
as to what India has achieved so far through the combined strategy of
growth and direct attack on poverty but also the daunting task that lies
ahead, Of course, it also brings in sharp focus the need to contain the
burgeoning growth in population.
Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation
Although alleviation of rural poverty has been one of the primary
objectives of planned development in India, it was only during the
Sixth Five Year Plan that the problem of rural poverty was brought
under a sharper focus. The Seventh and Eight Plan have continued with
this strategy i.e. emphasis on growth with social justice. "It was
realised that a sustainable strategy of poverty alleviation has to be
based on increasing the productive employment opportunities in the
process of growth itself. However, to the extent growth by-passes some
sections of the population, it is necessary to formulate specific poverty
alleviation programmes for generation of certain minimum level of
income for the rural poor." (Draft VIII F.Y. Plan, Ministry of R.D.). In more
concrete terms, the aim is enabling every one to have adequate
employment and afford at least the minimum desirable requirement of
food, clothing and shelter.
The underlying philosophy in poverty alleviation programmes in India
has been "decentralisation of planning and also renewed emphasis on
wage employment and asset oriented self-employment programmes.
Although resources constraints have been the major hurdle in
providing wage employment to all those who are in need of it, it may
not be before long that a national programmes guaranteeing wage
employment to all may be introduced in the country." (Draft VIII F.Y.
Plan, Ministry of R.D.) It is also recognised that rural development
programmes, including those concerned with a direct attack on
poverty, cannot succeed unless these are people oriented and people
themselves are involved at various levels in planning, approving and
implementing such programmes. To operationalise such a concept, an
entirely new wing of development administration, the Panchayati Raj,
has been developed as an adjunct of developmental planning in India
over last forty years or so, It traces its origin from the olden days when
every village in India used to be governed by a Panchayat, an
assembly of five (Parch) elders, who would self-govern (raj) the village
in almost all matters, even dispensing justice. In the post-
Independence period, the structured (rather than the informal of oldern
days) Panchayati Raj institutions functioned with various degrees of
effectiveness in different States of the country. There was a wide
differentiation in the statutory backing, the number of tiers and power
of such Panchayats. It was however experienced that except in a few
States, these rural local self government bodies could not raise
adequate resources and planning and implementation of projects by
these bodies also left much to be desired. The biggest drawback
noticed was that elections for these bodies were not held regularly and
over long periods of time, resulting in their losing the status of being
"people's elected bodies".
In order to rectify the shortcomings noticed in the functioning of these
Panchayat Raj bodies, the Constitution of India has recently been
amended and all the State Government were required to enact their
own legislations on the pattern set by the Constitution Amendment
Act. These bodies will now be unique and the Prime Minister recently
observed, "The Pradhan (President) of these bodies will be even more
powerful than the Prime Minister, as he combines in himself both the
legislative as well as executive head of the State. When Nyaya (justice)
panchayats are created, even judicial powers will be enjoyed by some
of the office of these bodies". (Address of the Prime Minister to
Minister's Conf., New Delhi, April, 94). It is hoped that the statutory
strengthening of the panchayat raj bodies with compulsory provision
for regular elections coupled with increase in the outlays for rural
development, these programmes will further contribute to the removal
of poverty and thereby help in better food and nutrition security for the
rural poor.
At this stage, I would like to only mention the various programmes
being implemented under the rural development sector in India. These
include Jawahar Rojgar Yojna (rural employment programme named
after the First P.M. of India, Jawaharlal Nehru); Employment Assurance
Scheme; Rural Housing; Rural Water Supply and Sanitation, Integrated
Rural development; Marketing Improvement; Land Reforms; Desert
Development/Drought Prone Area Programme etc. For the urban poor,
a new programme, Prime Minister's Rojgar Yojna has been launched
since last year. In this study, I would like to later discuss in a little more
details, the Jawhar Rojgar Yojna inclusive of Employment Assurance
Scheme and Integrated Rural Development Programme as they are the
two most important programmes to eradicate the rural poverty,
ultimately leading to improved household food security. Separately, an
important complementary programme, the Public Distribution System,
will also be discussed in details as it, along with poverty alleviation
programmes, forms the main plank for launching the country towards
the achievement of the goal of food security for all.
It will be appropriate at this juncture to also give the outlays for some
of the important rural development programmes for the last and
current financial year (April to March) to give an idea of the sweep and
extent of these programmes as also the substantial step up for the
current year:
Table 16 OUTLAY & EXPENDITURE FOR 1993-94 AND PROPOSED
OUTLAY FOR 1994-95 (In Rs. Millions)
1993- 1994-95
94
Scheme Outlay Tentative
 Outlay
1. Rural Employment 33060 48170
(a) Jawahar Rojgar Yojna
(b) Employment Ass.Scheme - 20,000
2. Integrated Rural Dev. Programme 6540 8510
3. Accelerate Rural Water Supply 7400 10780
4. Promotion of Voluntary Action in Rural 95 131
Dev.
5. Drought Prone Programme 770 1110
6. Desert Dev. Prog. 750 1090
7. Rural Housing 150 1100
Total 50100 93,000
It will be observed from the above that the outlay for the rural
development programmes has been substantially increased for 1994-
95, an increase of huge 86 per cent. In fact, the outlay for 1993-94 was
also a major step up over the previous year, Rs. 50,100 million as
compared to Rs. 31,000 million in 1992-93, an increase of 61%. The
reason for these hikes in rural development programmes is not only to
intensify the direct attack on poverty but also to shelter the poor from
the economic reforms and structural adjustment programmes started
by the Government two years back. The Economic Survey 1993-94
says "To ease the costs of adjustments, promote human resource
development and to generate more employment opportunities,
allocation for plan programmes in social sectors, rural development
and employment schemes were stepped up in 1993-94 budget. The
budget for elementary and adult education was increased by 53
percent, health by 60%, family welfare plus integrated Child
Development Services programmes by 28 percent and Integrated Rural
development Programme plus Jawhar Rozgar Yojna by 63 percent". As
is clear from the table above, the process of strengthening these
sectoral outlays, containing programmes in the nature of "safety net"
for the disadvantages sections of the society, were continued in the
current year and budget for these sectors including rural development,
agricultural development, food subsidy etc. were further increased for
1994-95. As mentioned earlier, the biggest income transfer programme
for the poor ie. Jawhar Rozgar Yojna and Integrated Rural Dev.
Programme and the public distribution system with accompanying food
subsidy will be discussed in greater details in the succeeding chapters.
Incidentally the outlay for food subsidy also stands increased to Rs.
36500 million in 1994-95 as against Rs. 28,000 million in 1993-94 and
Rs. 28500 million in 1992-93.
Jawahar Rozgar Yojna
Primary objective of this employment generation scheme (as also its
predecessors National Rural Employment Programme and Rural
Landless Employment Gurantee Programme) in operation since 1985-
86 is "generation of additional employment on productive works which
would either be of sustained benefit of the poor or contribute to the
creation of rural infrastructure". (Min of Rural Dev. 1993-94).Within the
outlays provided under this programme, six percent is earmarked for
Indira Awas Yojna i.e. Rural housing scheme named after Indira Gandhi,
former PM, houses being meant for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes
and freed bonded labour. Another 20 per cent resources are earmarked
for Million Wells programme under which open wells, suitable for
irrigation on small holdings, are provided to the same disadvantaged
groups as covered in Indira Awas Yojna. The physical and financial
performance of these programmes is given below:
Table 17
Year Expenditur Employment
e generation
In Rs. In Million mandays
Millions
NREP
1985- 5931 316
86
1986- 7178 395
87
1987- 7883 371
88
1988- 9018 395
89
RLEGP
1985- 4532 248
86
1986- 6359 306
87
1987- 6535 304
88
1988- 6694 297
89
JRY
1989- 24585 864
90
1990- 26000 875
91
Source: Min of RD. Government of India, Eighth Five Year Plan.
These programmes have resulted in substantial reduction in the
incidence of unemployment in rural areas, especially during the lean
season. It will be noticed from the above table that since their
inception in 1985-86, a total of 4371 million mandays employment was
created by these programmes up to 1990-91 itself. If it is assumed that
a family was able to secure on an average 100 mandays employment,
44 million families should have benefited and in other words 44 million
families could have secured at least 100 days food security directly
through this programme. If it is considered that there were 250 million
families living below poverty line in 1990-91, as high as 18 percent of
them were covered under this single programme. For rest of the year,
the families would have been able to get employment in agricultural
operations.. The programme could also indirectly help in increasing the
wage rates in rural areas because it sets a bench mark, below which
wages should not fall. In an study undertaken in Alwar district of the
State of Rajasthan (Surendra Kumar unpub., 1992), it was noticed that
people were not keen to enrol for JRY since most of the time they were
able to secure better wages elsewhere than the minimum wages
offered in JRY. Of course, such a picture cannot be considered
representative of the entire rural India but this illustrates the
potentiality of the indirect benefit from this programme in enhancing
and stabilising the wage rates. Further, wherever foodgrains were
provided as part of the wages, there was double benefit to poor, since
foodgrains were supplied at subsidised rates.
Employment Assurance Scheme
One of the Indian states, Maharashtra has been implementing an
Employment Guarantee Scheme. It guarantees employment in
government projects if workers come forward with a plea that they are
not able to get any employment in and around villages. On similar
pattern, the Employment Assurance Scheme has been started at the
national level with effect from 2nd Oct. 1993. It seeks to combine
employment guarantee with seasonal unemployment under an area
approach. The scheme is being implemented in 1752 identified
backward blocks (of the total of more than 4500 blocks in the country)
in 257 districts (out of more than 460 districts). These blocks are
situated in the drought prone, decertified, tribal and hilly areas in
which the revamped PDS is in operation. Thus, there is a synthesis
between creation of purchasing power and availability of foodgrains
within the same disadvantaged areas.
The primary objective of this scheme is to "provide gainful employment
during the lean agricultural season in manual work to all the able-
bodied adults in rural areas who are in need and who are desirous of
work, but cannot find it, either on farm or on allied operations or on the
normal plan/non plan works during such period. The secondary
objective is creation of economic infrastructure and community assets
for sustained employment and development". (Draft Annual Plan,
Ministry of R.D., 94-95). A beneficiary can get up to 100 days of the
work under this scheme and a maximum of two adults in a family can
be provided with work. An amount of Rs. 2000 millions has been
proposed in the budget for the current financial year, 1994-94.
Integrated Rural Development Programme
The Programme extends assistance to families living below the poverty
line and enables them to acquire productive assets or appropriate skills
for self employment which in turn should enable them to generate
enough income to get out of the poverty zone on a permanent basis.
The families to be covered are identified, their bench mark survey
done and bankable project prepared for each family. Government
provides part of the investment as subsidy, the remaining coming as a
bank loan. The scheme is supposed to be intergreated with the
developmental plans of the area without which it may not be possible
of establish forward and backward linkages and assets provided would
either give very poor financial returns or may even became a liability
to the beneficiary. The scheme also requires presence of a strong
banking infrastructure in the area as banks are not only required to
provide credit over and above the subsidy payable but scrutinise the
individual projects and access their economic viability. There has to be
a continuous and close overseeing of the programme by the concerned
development agency to help a poor family to turn into a successful
entrepreneur. A total of 42 million families have been assisted under
this scheme since its inception in 1980-81. It is proposed to assist
about 4 million families during the current year 1994-95 with an
implicit subsidy of Rs. 3750 million. (Ministry of RD, Annual Plan 1994-
94).
IRDP is no doubt a difficult programme to implement. The biggest
impediment is that a poor family, with no background of
entreprenuership and management skills is be suddenly transformed
into an Entrepreneur-Manager family. The other problems relate to
availability of inputs in required quantities locally; developing suitable
& durable marketing outlets and tendency amongst some beneficiaries
to dispose off the asset, especially in the face of difficulties in
managing it economically and profitably. Considering these difficulties,
measures like tripartite discussions of likely project to be undertaken
between the beneficiary, the representatives of the local development
administration and bankers; training of beneficiaries to upgrade their
technical and managerial skills; establishment of marketing
organisations/links; dovetailing with area development programmes
etc. are required to be taken up. At the same time, it was decided to
have concurrent evaluation of the programme so that the drawbacks
were noticed quickly and corrective action taken. In any case, as many
as 42 million families have been covered under this programme
between 1980-81 and 1993-94 and this must have gone a long long
way in reducing rural poverty.
There are a number of other programmes in the rural development
sector that contribute towards rural poor attaining higher incomes and
better quality of life. This is- not the proper place to discuss the details
of such programmes It may, however, be worthwhile to just mention
those to complete this chapter. Training of Rural Youth for Self
Employment (TRYSEM) is to supplement IRDP by equipping the rural
youth to acquire technical skills or upgrade their traditional skills.
Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA) revoles
around women as the target group. It provides one time financial
assistance to groups of women to take economically viable activities so
that it could be used as a ravoling funds. Drought Prone Area
Programme (DPAP) is specifically designed for arid and semi arid areas
with poor resource endowment. It provides financial assistance for
activities like landshaping, soil conservation, afforestation, pasture
development, water resource development etc. so that dryland
agriculture could be made more productive. Land Reforms is also an
important aspect of rural development, aiming at more judicious
redistribution of rural land, redistribution of surplus land by giving it to
the landless, tenancy reforms are implemented to provide security to
the actual tiller, scattered holdings are consolidated and like.
Panchayats, the local self Government bodies in rural areas are given
the supreme place in the entire philosophy of rural development. Last,
but quite important, is the encouragement being given to voluntary
action so they could play an effective role in generation of awareness,
inculcation of appropriate skills and bringing about a convergence of
developmental programmes They could also foster the spirit of self
reliance and innovativeness amongst the rural people and work as a
bridge between technologies developed in the urban
laboratories/institutions and their adoption in rural areas.
It can now be appreciated as to how the various programmes in rural
development sector, especially rural employment (JRY) and the asset
creation (IRDP) programmes, have contributed towards alleviation of
poverty in rural India. The performance of these programmes may not
be uniform over the whole country but generally speaking they have
succeeded in providing additional purchasing power in the hands of
rural poor and thus helped in improving the food and nutrition security
of the rural households. These programmes have been substantially
stepped up recently, and in conjunction with the reformed public
distribution system, can go a long way in ensuring a very high level of
food and nutrition security for poor households in India.

6. Public distribution system in India-

evolution, efficacy and need for reforms
Evolution of public distribution of grains in India had its origin in the
'rationing' system introduced by the British during the World War II. In
view of the fact that the rationing system and its successor, the public
distribution system (PDS) has played an important role in attaining
higher levels of the household food security and completely eliminating
the threats of famines from the face of the country, it will be in the
fitness of things that its evolution, working and efficacy are examined
in some details.
It was really the generation of World War's own compulsions that
forced the then British Government to introduce the first structured
public distribution of cereals in India through the rationing system-sale
of a fixed quantity of ration (rice or wheat) to entitled families (ration
card holders) in specified cities/towns. The system was started in 1939
in Bombay and subsequently extended to other cities and towns. By
the end of 1943, 13 cities had been brought under the coverage of
rationing and by 1946, as many as 771 cities/towns were covered.
Some rural areas, suffering from chronic shortage were also covered.
The Department of Food under the Government of India was created in
1942, which helped in food matters getting the serious attention of the
government. When the War ended, India, like many other countries,
decided to abolish the rationing system. This was in 1943. However, on
attaining Independence, India was forced to reintroduce it in 1950 in
the face of renewed inflationary pressures in the economy immediately
after independence "which were accentuated by the already prevailing
high global prices of foodgrains at the end of the War, which were
around four times higher than the prewar prices". (Bhatia, 1985)
Public distribution of foodgrains was retained as a deliberate social
policy by India, when it embarked on the path of a planned economic
development in 1951. It was, in fact, an important component of the
policy of growth with justice. In the first five year plan, the system,
which was essentially urban based till then was extended to all such
rural areas which suffered from chronic food shortages. It was also
decided to have two variations of the system, Statutory Rationing
Areas, where foodgrains availability was. supposed to be only through
the Ration Shops and Non-Statutory Rationing Areas, where such shops
would only supplement the open market availability. The system,
however, continued to remain an essentially urban oriented activity. In
fact, towards the end of the first five year plan (1956), the system was
losing its relevance due to comfortable foodgrains availability. The net
(gross minus 12.5 per cent for seed, feed and wastage) retail level
availability of foodgrains had jumped from 54.0 million tonnes in 1953
to 63.3 million tonnes in 1954 and remained at 63 plus million tonnes
up to end of the first five year plan. This situation even prompted the
government to abandon procurement of foodgrains and remove all
controls on the private trading in foodgrains. However, true to its cyclic
nature, the production dropped to 58.3 million tonnes in 1958, when
the second five year plan had just started and forced the government
to not only restart the procurement of cereals and put control on
trading of foodgrains but re-examine the need for public distribution
system (PDS). It was decided to re-introduce PDS. Other essential
commodities like sugar, cooking coal, kerosene oil were added to the
commodity basket of PDS. There was also a rapid increase in the
Ration Shops (now being increasingly called the fair price shops-FPSs)
and their number went up from 18000 in 1957 to 51000 in 1961.
Moreover, quantity of foodgrains distributed through PDS started
getting increased with PL-480 availability. Thus, by the end of the
Second Five Year Plan, PDS had changed from the typical rationing
system to a social safety system, making available foodgrains at a 'fair
price' so that access of households to foodgrain could be improved and
such distribution could keep a check on the speculative tendencies in
the market. The concept of buffer stocks was also incorporated in the
overall food policy, although no buffer worth the name was required to
be created in view of easy and continuous availability of PL-480 grains.
Creation of Food Corporation of India and Agricultural Prices
Commission in 1965 consolidated the position of PDS. Government was
now committed to announce a minimum support price for wheat and
paddy and procure of quantities that could not fetch even such
minimum prices in the market. The resultant stocks were to be utilized
for maintaining distribution through the PDS and a portion of these
were used to create and maintain buffer stocks. In fact, if stocks
happened to be inadequate for maintaining a certain level of
distribution through PDS, government had to resort to imports to
honour its charge to PDS consumers. All through the ups and downs of
Indian agriculture, PDS was continued as a deliberate social policy of
the government with the objectives of:
i) Providing foodgrains and other essential items to vulnerable
sections of the society at resonable (subsidised) prices;
ii) to have a moderating influence on the open market prices of
cereals, the distribution of which constitutes a fairly big share of
the total marketable surplus; and
iii) to attempt socialisation in the matter of distribution of
essential commodities.
The PDS seeks to provide to the beneficiaries two cereals, rice and
wheat and four essential commodities viz. sugar, edible oil, soft coke
and kerosene oil. However, state governments, which actually manage
the system at the ground level, are exhorted to add other essential
commodities like pulses, salt, candles, matchboxes, ordinary clothes,
school text books/copies and the like. Supply of additional items
through PDS is especially relevant in interior areas, which are away
from markets and where one or two traditional shopkeepers, who also
double up for money-lenders, have the market monopoly. A number of
state governments have set up Civil Supplies or Essential Commodities
Corporations to buy such additional items directly from the
manufacturers and use the existing structure of PDS to arrange for the
sale at lower than market rates.
Making available the six essential commodities (rice, wheat, sugar,
edible oil, soft coke and kerosene oil) to the state government is the
responsibility of the central government. Taking commodities other
than cereals (rice and wheat) first, the arrangement for such supply is
as under:
Sugar: Central government, under the provisions of the Essential
Commodities Act, fixes a levy percentage and accordingly
every sugar factory has to deliver that percentage of
production to the government. Presently, the levy is 40 per
cent. Central government allots to the state governments
every month share of the sugar out of the overall levy
quantity on the basis of 425 gins/capita on 1991 population.
State govts then arrange to lift it from the nominated
factories and arrange to sell it through the PDS. Sugar
factories deliver the sugar at the cost fixed by the central
government which in turn is based on the minimum support
price payable by the factories to the sugarcane farmers. The
non-levy or free sale sugar can be sold by the factories in the
open market at whatever price they like.
Edible The distribution of edible oil through PDS has now become an
Oil: occasional phenomenon. Whenever production of oilseeds
dips and prices of edible oils rise steeply making it too
expensive for poor people, central government imports oils
like Palmoelin or Rapeseed through its trading agencies and
allots it among state governments who sell it through PDS.
Depending on its international prices and the domestic prices,
it may be sold at subsidised or at no loss no profit basis.
Soft Soft coke is allotted to state governments from out of the
Coke: stocks held by the public sector coal companies. As this is a
cheap cooking medium for very poor households, it is sold at
substantially subsidised rates. As and when areas are covered
by distribution of LPG gas, in cylinders or piped, the allocation
of soft coke to states in reduced.
Kerosen Kerosene oil is used both as a lighting material and a cooking
e Oil: medium by poor households-as cooking mostly in urban areas
and as lighting material mostly in interior rural areas. The
supply to the state governments, on the basis of allocations
made by the central government, is arranged by the public
sector oil companies either from domestic production or by
imports. It is also sold at subsidised prices.
Rice and As far as rice and wheat are concerned, it is the Food
Wheat: Corporation of India which builds, holds & distributes them.
The stocks of these commodities are built almost entirely
through domestic procurement. As detailed elsewhere,
imports are now occasional and in small quantities. These
stocks are utilized both for allocations to the state
governments for distribution through PDS and also for
maintaining a national buffer. In good years of production,
procurement levels are normally high, distribution is less and
there is a build up of buffer stocks. In years of poor
production, the distribution is more due to higher demand
and better lifting by States/Union Territories and the buffer
stocks get drawn down. The procurement, distribution and
stocks picture in respect of rice and wheat since 1985-86 is
given in Table No. 18.
It can safely be surmised that two or more successive years of good
production will ease the open market prices, leaving no incentive for
farmers and traders to hold back stocks and thereby result in good
procurement.. This situation will also reduce offtake and buffer stocks
will be built up. On the other hand, two or more successive years of
poor production will harden open market prices, give rise to
speculative tendencies, reduce procurement, increase the demand on
PDS resulting in heavy offtake and lowering of stocks.
Table 18
(in lakh
tonnes)
Year Procureme Impor Distribution EGP Stocks on
nt ts of 1st July, 86
Wheat & Rice and onwards
Rice Wheat
PDS
1986- 197.08 - 120.06 20.5 269.99
87 2
1987- 149.6 - 154.15 19.2 221.33
88 0
1988- 147.45 26.95 151.28 5.20 109.86
89
1989- 210.2 5.24 142.67 3.80 121.29
90
1990- 239.44 - 149.60 0.23 189.01
91
1991- 179.99 - 187.30 0.92 197.81
92
1992- 197.39 24.55 167.64 2.82 138.62
93
1993- 252.13 5.45 147.47 2.65 241.63
94
Source: Bulletins of the Ministry of Food, GOI, May 1994.
Note :
1. 10 lakhs = 1 million.
2. Imports shown in 1989-90 & 1993-94 are balance quantities
received from out of contracts entered into during previous
years.
3. EGP: Employment Generation Programmes.
Review of PDS in India
The PDS has been functioning for more than four decades now, if we
leave aside its predecessor, the rationing system. Its greatest
achievement lies in preventing any more famines in India. As recently
as during the 1987 drought, considered worst in the century, the PDS
helped the country overcome it with dignity and effectiveness. "The
result of diet and nutrition survey during the 1987 drought showed that
widespread hunger and its consequences experienced earlier in 1960,
& 1970 were arrested in 1987". (Nutrition assessment & Analysis NIN,
March 1992). Of course, build up of a buffer in preceding years
provided the wherewithals to PDS as well as food for work type of
programmes Its major drawback, however, has been its lack of
effective contribution towards household food security. In fact, it
remains one of the weaker components of the food policy trioka of
procurement, distribution and stocking. The other two components
have fully exhibited their worth. But for carefully worked out support
prices with a structure to guarantee these, the farmer would not have
been induced to produce more and more foodgrains. In fact, without
FCI and other procuring agencies ready at thousands of purchase
centres to step in and purchase grain if the producer was not getting
higher price than the Government announced procurement price, the
private trade could never have handled the huge quantities that come
to market at harvest time and prices would have crashed, making all
the efforts and investment of farmer go waste. As for the buffer stocks,
it was the stock built in the preceding years (which had reached an all
time high of 27 million tonnes on 1.7.1986), which came handy and
enabled the country to meet the challenge thrown up by the great
drought of 1986-87, a challenge which was met successfully without
seeking any food aid from any quarter. No desperate purchases were
required and import of some wheat and rice could be deferred to 1988-
89 when the country could import on its own terms. The PDS also, no
doubt, played a great role by making available rice and wheat at the
fixed prices to consumers in all nooks and corners of the country,
thereby preventing the spectre of famine in any part of the country.
This distribution network also supplied grains for the "food for work"
type programmes taken up on a large scale to fight the drought. The
shortcomings noticed in the functioning of PDS as it is structured
presently, range from it being urban baised and pro-rich to its
ineffectiveness in reaching the poor. The system has, however, come
to stay, notwithstanding its shortcomings, because millions of India's
poor derive direct or indirect benefits from the very existence of this
system. The World Bank in their report of 1991 has observed that
"poverty consideration will compel India to sustain publicly sponsored
foodgrain procurement, storage and distribution efforts. These
programmes are even more important in a period of economic
downturn and adjustment, to ensure an adequate safey net". As
regards urban bias, a study has shown that "in case of all commodities
except coal, more than 50 per cent of the total quantity purchased
under PDS is in the rural areas... PDS is rural based at all-India level for
rice, coarse cereals, sugar and cloth. These items constitute more than
60 per cent of the total PDS purchases. Hence, it appears that PDS is
not urban biased but pro-rural" (Mahendra Dev & Suryanarayana,
1991). As regards its being pro-rich, the same study finds that "more or
less all the population [income] groups depend uniformly to the same
extent on the PDS with respect to all commodities in rural areas, even
though there were slight variations", (Dev & Suryanarayana, 1991).
Thus, even though PDS appears to be even-handed for all income
groups, this very finding points to its failure in achieving its basic goal
of helping the poor.
It is also said that PDS is not cost effective, its operations are too costly
and the ratio between procurement and transportation is too high
pointing to 'wasteful' movements. It is also mentioned that storage
losses are very high. However, if one was to analyse the various costs
of FCI, it will be seen that almost 80% of the costs of FCI are non-
controllable and FCI just cannot do anything if these rise. Example of
such costs are minimum support price/ procurement price which have
increased by almost 20% per annum in the past four years; interest
rates for bank credit; rail and road transportation cost etc. Thus, hardly
20% of the costs are amenable to cost reduction by FCI and efforts
need to be intensified in increasing labour productivity i.e., handling
costs; rationalisation of movement plans to avoid cries-cross
movement; reduction in transit and storage losses etc.
Another valid criticism of the PDS is its marginal impact, as far as
income transfer to poor households is concerned, with too many or
everyone being eligible to draw foodgrains from PDS, the per capita
transfer of income is very small. In an study based on National Sample
Survey's 42nd round (NSSO, 1990), it has been found that "the value of
the subsidy is so little even for those households who make all their
purchases of cereals from rationshops. For the bottom 20% of the rural
population, the subsidy is no more than Rs. 2.08 per capita per 30
days. With the average family size of 6, the subsidy per family is
almost Rs. 12.50 per month. In other words, it is useful to note here,
one person day of additional employment per family per month would
provide the same income support as provided by the cereals
distributed under PDS" (Parikh, 1993).
Most of the above shortcomings flow from the universal nature of the
present PDS, with benefit having been thinly spread over all the
beneficiaries, be they rich or poor. "While a number of studies have
suggested proper targeting of PDS, none of them have discussed the
costs and political feasibility of targeting. The administrative costs of
targeting have been reported to be high in some developing countries.
Many studies have also reported a high percentage of leakages in the
event of targeting". (Radhakrishnan & Rao, 1993). The main weakness
in PDS i.e. not reaching poor effectively stems from the universality of
the PDS coverage. Every household, irrespective of its income, can
have an entitlement card and draw foodgrains against it. This in turn
leads to low scales per household and first come first served system of
delivery. These two combine to allow leakages and diversions on the
one hand and "no commitment" syndrome on the part of the poor
households on the other. If PDS could be targeted to the poor, a larger
proportion of the household's requirement could be met by enhancing
the scale and it would also be able to generate a commitment on the
part of card holders on the system. Beneficiaries could then be
organised and educated. They would then monitor the supplies and
sales themselves to ensure that supplies reach the fair price shop in
proper quantity and quality and are sold to genuine beneficiaries. The
entitled households would also then demand their quota from the FPS
owner and would not be turned away by the shopkeeper by saying that
whatever quantity had come has been sold away or that the bad
quality grains were supplied (in some cases replaced by unscrupulous
vested interest) and beneficiary would find such stocks not worth
purchasing at that price. Targeting of PDS to the really needy is,
therefore, immediately required and an effective PDS maintained till
such time the country has poor, needy households.
Suggestions for Improvement of Existing PDS
The author had conducted a survey of the actual operation of the PDS
in the two Himalayan hill districts of Uttar Pradesh state in the
Northern India (Nawani, N.P., Unpub, Sept. 1993). PDS beneficiaries
(i.e. head of the household) as well as Fair Price Shop (FPS) owners
were selected on random basis although in case of FPSs, effort was
made to select FPS, on the basis of distance from the motorable road.
In all, 16 FPSs and 128 households were taken up for detailed survey
on the basis of two different sets of questionnaires. Attempt was also
made to select households from amongst various income groups i.e.
under each FPS, two households each from out of farmers,
salaried/businessman, part-farmers and labourers/unemployed.
Research methodology adopted consisted of detailed survey of
households and FPS owners as also personal discussions with selected
households, people at large and local officials. Such talks and on the
spot discussions were mainly held by the author himself although the
two supervisors of Investigators in each of the two district also did this
as they visited all villages selected for survey and they, in turn, had
detailed discussions with the author. The survey threw up some
suggestions for improvement in the functioning of PDS which without
going into their details, are briefly mentioned below:
i) Delivery of Stocks to FPSs should be on actual and not on
sample wieghment.
ii) Retail price at FPSs should be uniform throughout the
state/area after weight-averaging the transport cost for the FPS.
iii) Regular supply of good quality grains has to be ensured. iv)
Entitlement card's easy availability and improvement in its
design and durability.
v) FPS doorstep delivery of PDS commodities instead of delivery
to FPS owners at FCI godowns.
vi) Improvement in the viability of FPSs.
vii) Enlarging the basket of PDS commodities to enhance its
utility as also to improve economic viability of FPSs.
viii) Steamlining of the supply chain by construction of small
intermediary godowns between FCI's base godown and FPSs in
the interior.
ix) Introduction of a more effective Mangement Information
System.
Policy Reforms Required in PDS
Almost all food-managers, experts and even members of the political
executive feel that targeting PDS to poor is a fundamental reform that
cannot be deferred for too long. In the study report submitted by the
author to the Minister for Civil Supplies (Nawani, N.P., Sept. 1993) not
only the targetisation of PDS has been strongly recommended but the
way it can be implemented, keeping the twin objectives in mind, that
of making PDS an effective safety net for poor and keeping distribution
within limits set by domestic procurement and subsidy budget. As an
effective PDS will greatly enhance food security for poor households, it
is proposed to deal with it in somewhat greater detail. However, before
we go on to that, a brief description of some measures already initiated
by the Prime Minister (When he was also holding the portfolio of the
Minister for Civil Supplies, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution) in
1992 will be in order.
Revamping of PDS
With the change of the political executive at the national level in 1991,
the present Prime Minister accorded very high priority to the PDS and
for quite some time himself looked after the Ministry. It was felt that
the really vulnerable areas and people were not getting the desired
benefits of PDS due to their disadvantageous geographic location,
weak PDS infrastructure and low purchasing power. It was, therefore,
decided that PDS should be reoriented for ensuring effective reach to
the remotest and the most disadvantaged areas of the country which
also had the concentration of poor. Accordingly, around 1750 blocks,
composed of tribal, hilly, drought prone and 'decertified areas, were
identified and included in crash programme designated "Revamped
PDS" or for short "RPDS". The plan of action included:
i) A number of new FPS to be opened so that physical access of
beneficiaries is improved;
ii) Special campaign to be mounted by the state governments to
cancel the bogus entitlement cards and to issue new cards to
households found to be without them;
iii) To progressively bring more and more FPS under the system
of FPS doorstep delivery of PDS commodities;
iv) Set up vigilence committees of local people with substantial
representation of women for each FPS at the village level and
also at higher levels;
v) Improve the supply chain by constructing or hiring small
intermediary godowns; and
vi) Introduce additional commodities through FPS, in these areas.
"An analysis of the implementation of RPDS has shown that during
1992-93, per capita allocation in RPDS areas was higher than other
areas and whereas offtake (actual distribution) against allocation was
only 73 per cent in other areas it was 91% in RPDS aeas. States were
also moving towards the norm of 20 kg./family/month. The positive
trend that emerges from the analysis is that the PDS, which was
predominantly urban till the mid 1980s has now been effectively
targeted for the traditionally deficit areas covered by RPDS." (Min. of
Civil Supplies etc., 1993).
Targeting PDS to only Poor Households
Poverty and associated hunger is a curse and every civilized society
endeavours to alleviate extreme manifestations of poverty in their own
way. Every country tries to do it-be it an economic giant and torch-
bearer of the free markets like USA or a small happy go lucky Jamaica.
The underlying policy approach is, however, more or less same and is
basically built on 'providing direct assistance to poor households' so
that their access to essentials of life like food is improved. The policy
could be implemented through an income transfer mechanism like
Food Stamps or cash doles (as in USA etc.) or a dual price system (e.g.,
through a PDS as in India etc.). These mechanism or their variations,
cost money and this has to come from the food subsidy budgets of the
country. In India, a country of around 900 million people, of which
around one third lived in poverty as per 1986-87 estimates, any
programme seeking to achieve such a goal will require vast sums of
subsidy and it, therefore, becomes imperative that it is utilised in the
most cost effective manner so that it helps poor households to attain
adequate levels of food security in the true sense. An important
question that arises is whether, in the present scenario, when
availability of subsidy is greately constrained by overall fiscal deficit,
can we continue to fritter away whatever amount of food subsidy we
can mobilise? Since we simply cannot do this, we just cannot continue
with a PDS which consumes none-too-small Rs 30000 million subsidy
annually, but allows it to be available to anybody who wishes to draw
on it, irrespective of whether he is poor or rich. Besides, the inherent
weakness of a universal PDS, as organised now, allows quite a bit of
diversion and leakage. Part of the subsidy is, therefore, going to the
non-poor and even to the FPS dealers, handling contractors and some
state functionaries involved in unscrupulous siphoning off and
replacement of commodites. Such wastage of this precious and limited
subsidy cannot be allowed any longer, and therefore, there is no
alternative but to direct the subsidy to the poor and nobody else. Once
this is accepted, the mechanism for achieving such focus can be
chosen, depending on the situation prevailing in the country. We will
also have to decide whether to create an altogether new mechanism or
build upon the four decades old foundation provided by the PDS. It will
also be necessary to ensure that the size of the population to be
covered should be such that they all can be effectively accommodated
under the newly created safety net, the largeness of the net being
limited by the physical (government stocks of foodgrains) and financial
(amount available for food subsidy) resources of the country. The
present PDS can hardly be described as a safety net. Each and every
Indian and also some ghost card holders, presently constitute the
unorganized crowd that jostles under the ungainly net, nobody
knowing who is able to receive the shelter under it or who, requiring
such shelter badly, is being kept out or pushed out. As explained
earlier, in this vast country, with millions of poor, we cannot dispense
with the net altogether; there is therefore, no option but to mend the
net, erect it afresh with only the needy households under it.

7. Production and availability of

foodstuffs other than cereals
The status of basic food security, limited really to the availability of
cereals, has been examined in quite some details in the earlier
Chapters. The performance of the three most important instruments
being utilised to improve access to food viz. the PDS, the JRY and the
IRDP have also been dwelt with in some details. In this Chapter, it is
proposed to undertake a brief review of the production and availability
of the foodstuffs other than cereals.
It needs hardly any emphasis that malnutrition is a multi-faceted
phenomenon and requires multi-disciplinary strategy to tackle it. It so
happens that various elements of such strategy fall into different
jurisdictional areas being handled by various Ministries in the Central
and State Governments. In India, the Ministry of Agricultural has the
overall responsibility of planning and producing the foodstuffs required
for the country. It has many Departments within it. The Department of
Agricultural & Cooperation is concerned with agricultural production
including horticulture, fisheries etc. as also disaster management. The
Deptt. of Animal Husbandry looks after all aspects of livestock
management. Deptt. of Agricultural Research is charged with the
responsibility of carrying out and coordinating research and transfer of
research from laboratories to farms. The Min. of Food is responsible for
all activities relating to foodgrains after harvesting. These include
ensuring price support to growers, feeding public distribution system,
guiding trade so as to function smoothly, curbing hoarding and
speculative tendencies. Ministry of Food Processing Industry also plays
an important role as it not only seeks to enhance income of growers
but makes available nutrition all over the year through processed food
items. The Department of Women & Child Dev. is concerned with
nutrition policy. Ministry of Civil Supplies, Consumer Affairs & Public
Distribution coordinates the activities of all Ministries in the matter of
availability of essential commodities. The problem of nutrition is the
concern of all these Ministries and effective convergence of their
activities is a big challenge. The nutrition problem originates with what
all of the required food items are produced, how lack of some can be
tackled, the arrangement for the marketing and conversion of all food
stuffs into edible form and ultimate consumption by people in required
quantities and in appropriate quality. Any gaps in production,
distribution and consumption should be a matter of concern for all
policy makers. "This general problem of under nutrition should be seen
as a part of a larger set of processes that produces and consumes
agricultural commodities on farms, transforms them into food in the
marketing sector and sells the food to customers to satisfy nutritional,
aesthetic and social needs." (National Nutrition Policy, 1993). These
processes are spread over the entire gamut of human activities with
strong linkages between factors like resource endowment;
technological attainments; investment capacities; price policies;
cropping pattern and inter-se importance given to various crops;
storage; marketing and processing infrastructure; growth of the
industrial and scientific sectors and the health of the economy; the
rate of growth of population and above all, the commitment of the
Government and the political system towards improving the quality of
life of all the people living in the country. In the ultimate analysis, the
most effective yardstick is-whether the country is able to produce all
the foodstuffs required for the nutritional well being of all its people on
a sustained basis and if not, whether it has the wherewithal to procure
by import what it does not produce or produces in inadequate quantity.
As far as India is concerned, it has already been established that it has
been able to produce all the cereals it requires and now we can
examine the production and availability of the foodstuffs, other than
cereals. Their availability is as important as that of cereals because
various nutrients required come from different foodstuffs and human
potential cannot be optimised, without intake of various food items.
The data about other foodstuffs is, unlike cereals, not available
uniformly since the independence of the country. However, whatever
data is available in various statistical publications of the Ministry of
Agriculture, will be used to examine the status and progress of
production and availability of some of the more important foodstuffs
like pulses, fish, milk, oils, sugar etc. and the same is analysed
hereinafter to examine the trend of their production and availability.
Pulses
As far as pulses are concerned, the picture has been rather
unsatisfactory. In the decade between 1950-51 and 1960-61, the
production of pulses jumped by more than four million tons, an
increase of 51 percent or 5 percent per annum. This came about both
by increase in area (3.39 million hectares or 16.8 percent in the
decade) and increase in per unit production (441 kg per Ha to 539 kg
per Ha i.e. an increase of 22 percent during the decade). During the
next two decades, the production declined to 10.63 million tons, area
as well as yield declining in 198081 due to unfavourable monsoon
rains. During the next decade i.e. ending 1990-91, the production
reached a high of 14.06 million tons, area and yields both registering
an upward increase. There was again a decline to 12.02 and 13.60
million tonnes during 1991-92 and 1992-93. It is expected the
production will go up to 14.8 million tonnes during 1993-94. The per
capita availability of pulses has, therefore, been showing sharp
fluctuations, the extent and spread of monsoon rains greatly
determining the production by influencing both area under pulses and
yields. Against the requirement of 50 gms per capita per day, the
availability has been as shown below:
Table 19 AVAILABILITY OF ALL PULSES
Year Availability
(gms/capita/day)
1 60.70
951
1 69.00
961
1 51.20
971
1 37.40
981
1 29.70
991
Source: Economic Survey, 1993-94
It is apparent that production of pulses has been at best stagnating
and its availability has really shown a decline. Although pulses have
been on Open General Licence for imports even during the stricter
IMPEX policy, the annual imports of pulses never exceeded one million
tons. Thus imports would have only marginally improved the per capita
availability. Net imports of
pulses have been added to the production to work out the per capita
availability in the table above. In view of the urgent need to raise
production of pulses in the country and reach self -sufficiency, pulses
were brought under the Technology Mission in August 1990. Two
special schemes, namely, National Pulses Development Programme
(NPDP) and Special Pulses Development Programme (SPDP) have also
been taken up for implementation since 1990. Serious efforts are being
made in the area of R & D so that high yielding varieties, both for
irrigated and dry farming, could be evolved and popularised. The
increasing trend in production seen since 1990-91 augurs well for the
country but lot of ground is yet to be covered. Even though increase in
the production of fish, eggs, milk and milk products has added to
availability of protein, pulses are going to continue as the single most
major source for supply of protein. In fact, this poor man's protein has
such importance in the diets of Indians that a meal is commonly called
Dal-Roti (pulse plus flattened bread) or DalChawal (pulse plus rice).
Increasing the production of pulses, is thus a big challenge for the
Indian agriculture.
Fish
Fish production has gone up substantially as can be observed from
Table No. 20:
Table 20 PRODUCTION OF FISH (INLAND + MARINE)
(In million
tons)
50- 0.75
51
60- 1.160
61
70- 1.756
71
80- 2.442
81
90- 3.386
91
91- 4.157
92
92- 4.365
93
93- 4.572
94 (Estimated)
Source: Food Statistics, Min. of Agriculture
The production of fish, taking together inland and marine fishery, is
thus steadily rising and for the latest available three year period, it has
gone from 3.386 million tonnes in 1990-91 to 4.572 million tons in
1993-94. No specific RDI has been prescribed with respect to the fish
(refer Table No. 5) but its availability will certainly contribute to the
overall dietary intake, especially in respect of protein, oil and some
other micro nutrients.
Mutton
Production of meat, from all sources has increased more than five-fold
between 1971-1992 as can be seen from Table No. 21.
Table 21
Year Production of
meat
(In Million
Tons)
1 0.76
971
1 0.91
981
1 1.17
985
1 3.72
990
1 3.84
991
1 3.90
992
Source: Food Statistics, Min. of Agri.
The availability of meat has thus, shown a steadily increasing trend.
This increased availability would make up for decline in per capita
availability of pulses and at the same time provide more easily
absorbable protein to body.
Milk
It has often been said that India has recently gone through a white
revolution. The "Operation Flood" strategy of cooperativising the entire
milk production programme not only paid rich dividends in Gujarat
State but was duplicated in many other States successfully. There has
been good progress in cross breeding of cows and provision of
extension as well as veterinary services. This, coupled with entry of
private sector in the dairy industry, starting from captive hinterland,
has resulted in sharp increase in milk production, especially from 1990-
91, as can be observed from Table No. 22.
Table 22 MILK PRODUCTION IN INDIA
(In Million
tonnes)
1950- 17.0
51
1960- 20.0
61
1980- 31.6
81
1985- 44.0
86
1990- 53 9
91
1991- 55 7
92
1992- 57.8
93
1993- 60.8
94
Egg Production
Impressive progress has also been made in poultry and production of
eggs, as can be seen from table below:
Table 23 Production of eggs.
(In million
Numbers)
80- 10060
81
85- 16128
86
90- 21115
91
91- 21984
92
92- 22913
93
93- 24440
94
Source: Deptt. of Animal Husbandary, Min. of Agriculture
In order to further increase production of this commodity, which is
becoming very common even amongst poor household, especially
amongst slum dwellers, labourers and migrant labourers, a number of
poultry estates are planned to be set up. Tremendous progress has
been made in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, which now
supplies eggs to at least half of the country. Similar progress is sought
to be duplicated else where.
EDIBLE OILS
India has been importing edible oils on regular basis from 1980-81 to
1990-91. The annual imports were as high as 1.6 million tons in 1983-
84 and touched a peak of 1.8 million tons in 198788, when the drought
had badly reduced the production of oilseeds. However, in the
meantime, India had launched a Technology Mission on Oilseeds in May
1986 to harness latest technology in all aspects of oil production,
starting with production and going on to processing and marketing.
Schemes like price support operations and market intervention were
also started. A special Oilseeds Production Programme (OPP) is also
being implemented in 324 districts in 21 oilseeds producing states in
the country. The programme covers nine oilseeds. The results were
quite dramatic. The dependence on imports started getting reduced
after 1987-88. In 198889 the production of nine oilseeds jumped to
18.03 million tons from 12.63 million ton in 198788. It remained at the
high levels in the subsequent years and crossed the 20 million tonnes
mark during 1992-93. Import of oils correspondingly dropped to 0.32,
0.53 0.23 and 0.10 million tons in the period 1989-90 to 1992-93.
Even though the availability of edible oils has improved dramatically in
recent past, it is still short of nutritional requirements. During 1993-94,
the domestic requirement ~ 7.53 kg./ capita/year, works out to 6.84
million tonnes but production is expected to be only around 6.17. Even
though import of edible oil has been out under OGL. the shortfall in
availability during current year is expected to be even more than what
it was during 1993-94. In earlier years also, there was a shortfall. This
shortfall is duly reflected in consumption data.
Sugar and Jaggery
Sugar and jaggery are important sources of energy, especially in rural
areas. In urban areas also, the poor migrant families working at
construction sites and moving from place to place along with shift of
work or living in slums have started taking bread and tea for breakfast
in a big way. In fact, very sweet tea is not only a glass that cheers but
provides energy for the tough work these migrant labourers do. In
urban slums too this brew is very popular. We can study the progress
made in production of sugar and jaggery by examining the sugarcane
production. It exhibits an increasing overall trend even though there
have been sharp fluctuations as can be seen from the table below:
Table 24 PRODUCTION OF SUGARCANE
(In million
tonnes)
1989- 225.6
90
1990- 241.0
91
1991- 254.0
92
1992- 230.8
93
1993- 231.0
94
Source: Economic Survey 1993-94.
Per capita consumption of sugar has steadily been going up from 2.5
kg./capita/year to reach 13 kg. during 1991-92. In fact, on the basis of
ICMR norm of 31 gins/capita/day, the annual consumption should be
only around 12 kg. This indicates excess consumption of sugar, which
is not such a nutritious item (containing only energy).
Potato, Sweet Potato and Tapioca
These are important supplements to food intake for poor people,
especially the tapioca. As can be noticed from the table below, while
the production of potato has made a quantum jump since country's
independence, whatever data is available for sweet potato and tapioca
indicates a stagnation in the production of these two food items. Of
course, potato received lot of attention from research and extension
workers and it has now become an important cash crop with huge
production in some areas creating problems of surplus,
notwithstanding establishment of a number of cold storage. Sweet
potato is grown only as a risk crop on rain fed marginal lands and
tapioca is popular in only a few states. The position regarding
production of potato is shown in the table below:
Table 25 Production of Potato
(In million
tonnes)
1950- 1.66
51
55-56 1.86
60-61 2.72
85-86 4.08
70-71 4.81
75-76 7.31
80-81 9.67
85-86 10;42
90-91 15.25
FRUITS
It is only recently that serious attention is being given to improve
production, processing and marketing of fruits. At the central level, the
National Horticulture Board has been set up to coordinate all the
activities and give the necessary push to all the horticulture related
activities. As per the Board, the production of fruits has been as under:
Table 26 Production of Fruits
Year (In million
tonnes)
1989- 28.24
90
1990- 28.36
91
1991- 32.07
92
It appears that production of fruits registered a quantum jump in 1991-
92 and it is hoped that this progress will be maintained. Availability of
fruits will greatly help in improving the nutritional status of people,
especially children, who tend to get a bigger share of fruit consumption
within the family.

8. Other important programmes to

combat malnutrition in India
Two major programmes designed to improve food security viz. the PDS
(making available foodgrains at affordable prices) and employment
generation schemes (improving purchasing power through self and
wage employment) have already been discussed in detail. However, it
will be in the fitness of things to briefly mention other programme
which attack malnutrition directly or indirectly, since ultimate test of
food security lies in nutritional well being of all. Direct attack on
malnutrition has become necessary because it was felt that hopes of
aggregate growth percolating down to most disadvantaged and
vulnerable groups did not come true. "In the face of continuing poverty
and malnutrition, an alternative strategy of development, comprising a
frontal attack on poverty, unemployment and malnutrition became a
national priority from the beginning of the Fifth Five Year Plan. This shift
in strategy has given rise to number of interventions to increase the
purchasing power of the poor, to improve the provisions of basic
services to the poor and to devise a security system through which the
most vulnerable sections of the poor (viz. women and children) can be
protected" (NNP, 1993).
A. WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT SECTOR
1. Integrated Child Development Service Programme (ICDS)
This is a unique programme under which a package of integrated
services consisting of supplementary nutrition, immunization, health
check up, referal and education service are provided to the most
vulnerable groups even within children and women, i.e. children up 6
years of age and expectant/nursing mother, through a common focal
point called Anganwadi (the courtyard centres) in each of the
village/urban slums.
The objectives of ICDS (Annual Report, Department of Women and
Child Development, 199394) are:
- to improve the nutritional and health status of children in the
age group 0-6 years;
- to lay the foundation for proper psychological, physical and
social development of the child;
- to reduce the incidence of mortality, morbidity, malnutrition
and school drop out;
- to regulate effective coordination of policy and programme
implementation amongst various departments to promote child
development;
- to enhance the capability of the mother through proper
nutrition education for taking care of the normal health and
nutritional needs and health of the child
One ICDS project covers either a tribal or a rural Block, the territorial
unit at sub-district level or a cluster of urban slums in an urban project.
Preference in selection of Blocks is given to those which have
comparatively larger proportion of the population of tribal people and
other disadvantaged categories. The ICDS programme was launched
experimentally and rather modestly, by covering 33 Blocks/slums in
1975-76. The author happened to be the Director incharge of the
programme in the then Ministry of Education and Social Welfare
immediately thereafter, when programme was internally evaluated and
expanded to 66 Blocks. Since then, the programme has been expanded
gradually in a phased manner and by the end of March 1993, it
consisted of 3066 projects with 19.5 million children and mothers
receiving supplementary nutrition under the programme. In addition,
9.34 million children were receiving pre-school stimulation. The entire
expenditure of the 2871 centrally sponsored ICDS projects (of the total
3066 projects in place by the end of March 1993) is borne by the
Central Government, barring expenditure on supplementary nutrition
which concerned State Governments incur. Expenditure on rest of the
projects is borne of the state governments. How massive is the
programme can be gauged by the fact that "21.4 million women and
children are likely to have been covered by one or other aspects of this
programme in 1993-94 and an amount of Rs. 4618 millions is likely to
have been spent by the Central Government itself. UNICEF and some
other international agencies are also assisting the programme. (Annual
Report, Min. of Women & Child Dev., 1993-94)
An evaluation of the ICDS programme carried out in 1990-92 has
revealed that some of the positive impacts of programme are (i) IMR in
ICDS covered areas was significantly lower (66.6/1000) compared to
IMR in the non-ICDS areas (86/1000); (ii) immunization coverage in
ICDS areas has been much better (iii) there has been better coverage
of prophylaxsis programme of Vit. A and iron; (iv) the nutritional status
of covered children was going up and (v) the percentage of low birth
weight babies was also found to be lower. On the negative side, the
report has brought out inadequate community participation and
perhaps too much dependence on Government. Another status
appraisal of ICDS, carried out in four States by the National Institute of
Nutrition, Hyderabad revealed that "Nutritional status of ICDS
beneficiaries in Bihar was better than their non-ICDS counterparts and
only marginal differences were observed in the remaining three States
of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa". This report, therefore,
suggests better training and motivation of ICDS workers to monitor
growth properly and continuously identify the children and mothers at
risk, arrange for clinical intervention in their cases, increase the
quantum of their supplementary nutrition and so on. In fact, NIN is now
starting the "nutrition surveillance" in ICDS blocks in Andhra pradesh
on pilot basis for achieving the abovementioned purposes.
It is now well recognised that proper and continuous training of ICDS
functionaries at all levels and functional monitoring is vital to the
success of a programme like ICDS which seeks of deliver a package of
services. At the same time, motivation of the village people to support
the programme is also a much needed element. In fact, the worker
incharge of the focal point of delivery in the village i.e. Anganwadi
worker is supposed to be a girl from the village itself so that she does
not have too many overheads and does not take it as a job being
performed like by a Government employee. She must be able to feel
that she is enabling the children and women, many of whom are her
relatives in her own community, to derive the benefits from the
programme.
2. Special Nutrition Programme (SNP)
This programme was launched way back in 1970-71 for the same
target group as in ICDS i.e. children below 6 years age and expectant
and nursing mothers. The programme is confined to tribal areas and
slums. Main activity under this programme is to provide supplementary
feeding to the beneficiaries for 300 days in a year, although some
individual initiatives were made in some States to link some other
services with supplementary feeding. For example, in early seventies
in the small State of Tripura in North Eastern India, a school drop out
tribal girl was selected for running the feeding centre, provided with
some motivational training and then encouraged to impart pre- school
education to the children, teach them simple personal hygiene etc.
Tribal communities were exhorted, and they invariably did so, to
construct a small hall where the pre-school activities could take place.
Under this programme, every child is to receive 300 calories and 8 to
15 gms of protein and every expectant and nursing mother 500
calories and 20 to 25 gms of protein per day. As and when ICDS
projects coyer 'tine areas having the SNP, the programme is merged
with ICDS.
Balwadi Nutrition Programme
Bal (children) wadi (home or centre) Nutrition Programme is a
contemporary of SNP and is being implemented since 1970-71 by the
Central Social Welfare Board and national level nongovernmental
voluntary organisations, namely, Indian Council for Child Welfare,
Harijan (Scheduled Castes) Sevak (Service) Sangh (Board), Bhartiya
(Indian) Adimjati (Scheduled Tribe) Sevak Sangh and Kasturba (wife of
Mahatma Gandhi) National Memorial Trust. This segment of nutrition
programme is thus implemented essentially by non-governmental
organisations. The Central Social Welfare Board, which is a semi-
government umbrella organisation in the field of social work, gives in
turn, grants-in-aid to voluntary organisations to actually run the
programme and so do the other four national level voluntary
organisations, which also extend assistance to various voluntary
organisations beside running some centres directly.
The beneficiaries of SNP are basically from the disadvantaged section
of the society like tribal/scheduled caste people, urban slum dwellers
and also migrant labourers. The in-charge of the Balwadi Centre is an
honorary worker, like Anganwadi worker of ICDS, and is paid an
honorarium which is Rs. 200 per month for trained and Rs. 150 for
untrained. She is assisted by a helper who is also an honorary worker.
The Balwadis not only provide supplemental nutrition but also look
after the social and emotional development of children attending these
Balwadis.
A total number of 5641 Balwadi centres are presently being run by the
five organisations. About 229 thousand children in the age group 3-5
years are covered under the programme. The budget for the SNP
during 1993-94 stood at Rs. 100 million.
3. Creches for Children of Working and Ailing Women
The scheme, implemented since 1975, has been designed to free the
working, and in some cases ailing mothers, from the task of looking
after their children while they are on work or are sick. The coverage
under the scheme is available only to those children whose parent's
total monthly income does not exceed Rs. 1800. Children generally
belong to casual migrant vendors, construction labourers groups etc.
The services available to the children include sleeping and daycare
facilities, supplementary nutrition, immunization, medicines,
entertainment and checkups at weekly intervals.
The scheme is implemented by the Central Social Welfare Board which
gives grants-in-aid to various non-governmental organisations to
manage the creches. Two other national level voluntary organisations
namely, Indian Council for Child Welfare and Bhartiya Admijati Sewak
Sangh also implement this scheme.
A total of 12470 creches are being run under this scheme; during
1993-94, covering three hundred thousand children. Assistance to the
tune of Rs. 230 million is being provided to the CSWB and voluntary
organisations to implement the scheme.
4. Wheat Based Supplementary Nutrition Programme
The scheme was started with the twin objective of providing
supplementary nutrition to children and popularising wheat intake. Min
of Food places at the disposal of the Department of Women and child
Development about 100 thousand tonnes of wheat from the central
reserves annually and that Department, in turn, sub-allocates this
wheat among States which utilise the wheat mostly to produce wheat
based ready-to-eat nutrition supplements. With the spread of ICDS, this
wheat or its products are increasingly being utilised for distribution of
supplementary nutrition in ICDS and mid-day-meal programmes The
wheat is supplied to the State Governments by the Food Corporation of
India at the same subsidised rates as for the public distribution system.
5. World Food Programme Project
World Food Programme-UN provides food-stuffs so that supplementary
nutrition could be provided through the projects supported by them.
WFP-India project has been extended from time to time and the
present extension would last till the end of March 1995. WFP currently
supports 12 projects in India, with a total commitment of 292 million
dollars worth of food aid. "The major part of WFP's assistance to India
supports projects in forestry, irrigation and supplementary nutrition.
WFP's food assistance to India is focused on poverty alleviation,
directly targeting the most vulnerable section of the society" (WFP
News letter April 94). The WFP provides Soya Fortified Bulger Wheat,
Corn Soya Blend and edible oil to benefit about 2.1 million pre-school
children, expectant and nursing mothers. For the last three years or so,
the WFP obtains wheat or rice locally from the Food Corporation of
India in exchange for the butter oil it gets as donation from some
European countries.
6. CARE Assisted Nutrition Programmes
Under the Indo-CARE Agreement of 1950, CARE-India extends food aid
so that supplementary nutrition can be provided to pre-school children
of age less than six years and expectant/nursing mothers. The CARE
assistance is now dovetailed with ICDS projects and some of the ICDS
projects utilise this assistance for the nutrition component of the
programme. The programme covers ICDS projects in 10 States of the
Indian Union. CARE has also monetized oil received by it as donation
for generating funds worth Rs. 100 million for implementing activities
supportive of ICDS programme.
During 1993-94, CARE would provide slightly above 200 thousand
tonnes of food commodities to cover around 9 million beneficiaries.
7. Tamilnadu Integrated Nutrition Project
This project located in the Southern State of Tamilnadu, was started
sometime in 1980-81 with the World Bank first time extending
assistance for nutrition programmes in India. Second phase of the
project with a life of six years has started in 1990-91.
The project would ultimately cover 316 of the 385 development Blocks
in Tamilnadu. This will enable all the rural areas of the State to come
under the coverage of either this project or ICDS, as in most of
nutrition programmes discussed earlier. The target groups in this
project are also children up to 6 years of age and pregnant/nursing
mothers. Like ICDS, pre-school education is provided to children in 3 to
6 years group. The project seeks to provide enhanced inputs in the
areas of health, communications, training, project management,
operations, research, monitoring and evaluation. The NNMB repeat
surveys for rural areas in Tamilnadu showed that "the prevalence of
severely underweight 1-5 (i.e below 60% NCHS median weight for age)
dropped from 12.6% in 1975-79 to 4.2% in 1980-90, at a faster rate
than all India improvement of 15% to 8.7% in the same period The
rural IMR decreased from 121 in 1976 to 85 in 1988, as compared to
all-India IMR decrease from 139 to 102. A comparison of deaths among
children 0-4 yrs. to total deaths shows that Tamil Nadu at 22.2% (in
1987) is second only to Kerala (13.3%) (with all India average was
42.0%)". (Ready, Mrs. Vinodini, 1992) It, therefore, appears that this
project, implemented in just one state with strong political and
administrative back up, has been able to secure better coordination
between nutrition, health and educational services and certain strong
points observed in this project need to be replicated in other nutrition
programmes
8. UNICEF Assistance for Women and Children
India has been associated with UNICEF since 1949 and is one of the
major countries as far as activities of UNICEF are concerned. The
activities are guided by the provisions of the Master Plan of Action, the
latest of which was signed between India and UNICEF on 30 May 1991
and extends up to 1995. During the Five year period, UNICEF is likely to
spend around U.S. $ 175 million in India from its general resources.
UNICEF's assistance covers a wide spectrum and is available in the
sectors of health, education, nutrition, water and sanitation, rural
development urban basic services etc. Of course, the focus of all its
programmes is essentially on children and also on women, with the
ultimate objective of better child health survival & development.
B. INTERVENTIONS IN THE HEALTH SECTOR
Inspite of a drop in the growth rate of population (from 2.22% during
1971-81 to 2.14% during 1981-91), "every year around 17 million
people are added to the population, which creates a demand for
additional resources for clothing, housing, food, education, health,
schooling etc. With 2.4% of the world land area, India supports 16% of
the world's population." (Annual Report Min. Health, 1994). Population
control, therefore, remains a key to the resolution of not only food and
nutrition security in India, but almost all the problems that the country
faces. The ultimate objective of all socio-economic development is to
bring about a meaningful and sustained improvement in the well being
and welfare of the people and there is no better index of the well being
of people than the state of their health. The importance of the status of
the health of people can, therefore, scarcely be over emphasised.
Whether directly or indirectly, all health programmes are as important
in combating malnutrition as programme that make available
purchasing power, foodgrains at the subsidised prices and
supplementary nutrition to children and mothers.
In fact, now a days the sensitive index of a community's health status
is the chance of survival and growth of its children below five years of
age. It is another matter that the author himself, in the early stages of
his service (1969-71), had an occasion to observe a community of
tribal people whose philosophy to life was, and I hear still is, entirely
different from ours. This community, the Nishi Tribe (earlier known as
Daflas), inhabited the high hills in one of the districts of the North East
Frontier Agency, now the State of Arunachal Pradesh in North East
India. Author's own headquarters, as the administrative head of that
area, was full 13 days foot march from the nearest motor head. The
area was thus, completely cut off from rest of the world, the only
contact being the wireless net used by the government and once in a
while helicopter sortie. The people were completely self sufficient and
the only thing they needed from the outside world was salt which
earlier used to come from Tibet and was later on air dropped. It was
observed to be a simple and happy community, producing enough to
feed themselves for the whole year by slash and burn (Jhum)
cultivation on hill slopes and supplementing their diets with mutton
obtained from hunting & smoked inside their huts for use throughout
the year. I never saw them grieving for the death of a child, they would
simply accept it matter of factly, explained away by the jungle law of
the survival of the fittest. Of course, when a child passed the age of
13-14 years, he would develop into a beautiful specimen of human
being, well built, tough and happy go lucky. The author, bred in a
different environment, could neither understand not appreciate their
philosophy. However, it appeared that high child mortality was perhaps
necessary in order to maintain the balance between humans and
nature, especially the need to maintain a long cycle in the shifting
cultivation. Child births were many but women were tough and did not
appear to have any adverse effects of frequent deliveries, probably
because of being used to hard labour all the year round. My wife was
amazed one day when she saw the wife of my Political Interpreter
returning home from her Jhum Khet (slope of shifting cultivation),
about 4 kms away, with a new born baby in her arms. The area was
free from various infections and I have myself seen a man's intestines
having come out through wound inflicted by a spear, but the local
medicant put it back, covered the wound with some paste made of
local leaves and sewed it with pig's hair ! Of course, the area could not
remain isolated forever and even without completion of the motor road
under construction those days, the market economy and modern
civilization slowly entered the area. We, the change-agents, introduced
wet rice permanent cultivation in valley lands to replace jhum
cultivation. Valley lands being limited, land disputes erupted for the
first time. With money and markets, entered terylene shirts, radio
transistors, cosmetics and so on. Gradually their uncomplicated simple
life started giving way to a life like ours, one not infrequented by
greed, disputes and selfishness. This digression, though not necessary,
was spontaneous, and only serves to establish the fact that the earth
has now shrunk and global standards of life styles have to be adopted
by every community sooner or later. In India as a whole, Mahatma
Gandhi's philosophy of reducing wants has been given up. Substantial
improvement in various health indicators have to be therefore,
achieved by 2000 AD and some of these as given in the country paper
for International Conference of Nutrition (Min of Food, 1992) are listed
below:
1. Infant Mortality - To be brought down from estimated 80
per 1000 live birth in 1990 to 60.
2. Child Mortality Rate - From 20 in 1990 to Below 10 per thousand
live births.
3. Crude birth rate - From 29.9 to 21 per thousand.
4. Crude Death Rate - From 9.6 in 1990 to below 9 per thousand.
5. Low Birth Weight Infants - From 18 percent in 1990 to 10%.
6. Protein Energy - Negligible presently, to be eliminated.
Malnutrition (Kwashiorkar)
7. Severe Protein-Energy - From 8.7 percent in 1990 to below 1
Malnutrition (Marasmus) percent.
8. Protein Energy - From 43.8% in 1989-90 to below 15%.
Malnutrition (Moderate)
9. Xerophthalmia - Present incidence resulting in blindness is
(Keratomalacia) estimated at 0.04 percent. It may be
eliminated.
10. Xerophthalmia (Bitot's - Presently estimated 0.7% to below 0.1%
spots)
11. Iron Deficiency Anaemia - To be reduced significantly.
12. Iodine Deficiency - To be brought down drastically
Ministry of Health and F.W. is responsible both for the health as well as
family welfare programmes Its basic goal is to ensure Health for All
(Alma Ata Declaration) and achieve a Net Reproduction Rate of Unity
by 2000 AD. One of the most important programmes is to establish
Primary Health Centres (PHC) and sub Centres so that health care
service are within easy reach of the people. At present, a PHC covers a
population of 30 thousand in plains and 20 thousand in hilly areas,
whereas Sub-centre covers 5 thousand in plains and 3 thousand in
hilly/tribal and backward areas. Approximately 10 percent of the PHCs
work as rural hospitals with provision of 30 beds.
The Health and Family Welfare Ministry also provides maternal and
child health services as an important part of the total health care.
These services include immunisation of infants, children and expectant
mothers; prophylaxis programmes to combat nutritional anaemia and
Vitamin A deficiency induced blindness; goiter control programme
through production and distribution of iodised salt; popularisation of
oral rehydration therapy against diarrhoea; control programme for
various diseases ranging from Malaria to AIDS etc. Some of the social
initiatives that have a bearing on health are also taken-such initiatives
include increase in the minimum age for marriage, social marketing of
contraceptives etc.
C. INTERVENTION IN EDUCATION SECTOR
It has now been well demonstrated, including the example of Kerala
State in India, that higher educational attainments in a society have a
positive influence on health and nutritional status of the people. The
education also helps in economic development, which in turn improves
food and nutrition security and ultimately improves the quality of life of
all people. Female literacy is still more important because "empirical
evidence in Indian context has shown a high negative correlation
between female illiteracy on the one hand and fertility and infant and
maternal mortality on the other. UNESCO studies have also brought out
that a stabilised adult literacy level of 70 percent is a positive
indication of universal primary education and a critical threshold for
economic growth" (ECONOMIC SURVEY 1993-94)
India has made significant progress in this sector. The Gross Enrollment
Ratio in the Primary School level has gone up from 42.6 percent in
1950-51 to 105.7% in 1992-93 and at the stage of Class VI to VIII
(Upper primary stage), from 12.7 to 67.5 percent. Proportion of
children moving up from the primary to Upper Primary stage has also
increased from 16.3 percent in 1950-51 to 34 percent in 1991-92.
Substantial progress has also been made in literacy levels as can be
seen from the table below:
Table 27 LITERACY LEVELS (PERCENT)
YEAR M FEMAL TOTAL
ALE E
1 2 3 4
1951 27.16 8.86 18.33
1971 45.95 - 21.97 34.45
1991 64.13 39.29 52.21
Source: Census of India, 1991.
The programme, though substantial, has not yet reached desirable
levels. Lot of work is still to be done in the area of female literacy,
which is all the more important in improving the nutritional status of
members of the family especially infants and children. Further,
"personal hygiene and wholesome dietary practice can be best
promoted in the impressionable i.e. formative years of a child.
Therefore, an improvement in the level of education has a positive
impact on the level of nutrition too." (Country paper for ICN, Min of
Food 1992)
Lot of progress has also been made in the growth and spread of
educational institutions, right from primary school to the Universities,
as will be evident from the table below. Optimum use of these facilities
is now required to he ensured.
Table 28 GROWTH OF RECOGNISED EDUCATIONAL
INSTITUTIONS
(Number as on 31.3.1993)
Type 1951 1971 1991 1993
1. Primary Schools 20967 40837 55839 572541
1 8 2
2. Upper Primary 13596 90621 14663 153921
6
3. Secondary Schools Degree 7416 37051 78619 84086
Colleges
4. Colleges for Education 370 2285 4862 5334
5. Colleges for Professional 208 992 886 989'
education
6. Universities 27 82 146 149
* Includes Engineering, Medical and Teachers Training Institutions,
whereas data for previous decades also included Physical Education,
Mid wifery. Agri. Vet. & Music etc.
Source: Economic Survey, 1993-94
Implementation of the Directive Principle of the Constitution to
universalise elementary education and eradication of illiteracy in the
age group 15-35 years is the basic objective for the education sector
for the current Five Year Plan. It is a gigantic task, since about 19 to 24
million children in the age group 6-14 and over 121 million adult
illiterates in the age group 15-35 (with over 60 percent females in both
the groups) are estimated to constitute the target group in this
context. (Econ. Survey, 1993-94). Investment in education will have to
be stepped up and more and more of higher education will have to be
made self-paying. At present, around 75 percent of the financial
resources for educational institutions come from central and state
governments and share of fee and endowments and other resources
have shown a declining trend. This has to be reversed and more and
more funds made available for elementary education and adult literacy.
This has been put into practice and 1993-94 budget has seen an
increase of 37.6 percent in the central plan for education.
D. WATER SUPPLY AND SANITATION
Water is the next most important basic need after air. Even now, in
many areas people (really speaking womenfolk) have to spend lot of
time and energy in collecting potable water for the family's use. The
water used for drinking should be free of all infections, otherwise
intake of any amount of nutrition may turn out to be useless. For
example, if a person is having worms or suffering from water borne
diseases like diarrhoea, what nutrition he consumes will just come out
of the body without providing the body with any nutrients, the leaking
pot phenomenon ! Provision of safe and potable drinking water to all is,
thus, also an important element of nutritional improvement.
Provision of safe drinking water in all the cities, towns and more than
hundreds of thousand villages is a major challenge. It is not only the
question of physical provisioning of sources but educating people in
villages to use these properly and maintain them. The problem is much
more difficult in hilly, tribal and decertified areas. Habits of the people
also play a part, because it has been observed that many a times,
especially in tribal areas, people would prefer to take water from a
running stream, even if it has been made dirty by use upstream, rather
than from a tube well or a ring well. Considerable progress has, no
doubt, been made in arranging for safe drinking water to all but there
are still a few interior villages which either do not have a source or are
very much undeserved.
Sanitation is also of great importance in upgrading the nutritional
status of people, especially those who are more busy with day to day
existence. The concept of total environmental sanitation is being
propagated in the current plan, making information, education and
communication (IEC) an integral part of the programme. The
integrated scheme of low cost sanitation and liberation of scavengers
is already in operation in 760 towns in various states
The status of water supply and sanitation programme is given in the
Table No. 29.
Table 29 POPULATION COVERED WITH DRINKING WATER AND
SANITATION FACILITIES
(Percentage coverage as on 31.3.1993)
ITEM/AREAS 1 1 1903
985 990
Drinking water
supply
Rural 56.3 73.9 73.5.
Urban 72.9 83.8 84.9
Sanitation Facilities
Rural 0.7 2.4 3.15
Urban 28.4 45.9 47.9
Source: Econ. Survey, 1993-94
It must be appreciated that the concept of sanitation in rural India is
still tradition bound to a great extent and people tend to keep following
them till breaking point is reached. This is one of the reason why the
percentage of people covered under sanitation facilities in rural areas
is still so low.
The National Drinking Water Mission is the specialised agency which is
tackling the problem and it aims to provide safe drinking water in all
rural area & maintain hygienic standards of sanitation.

9. Consumption of food & nutrition

Various food and nutrition related policies, initiatives and programme
in India have already been discussed in preceding chapters. An
attempt can now be made to see the impact of these on the
consumption of various food items and consequently on national and
household level food and nutrition security. It is proposed to first look
at food or rather "cereals" consumption and then move on to the
consumption of other food and nutrition items. Normally one should
take foodgrains i.e. cereals plus pulses for such an exercise, but it is
proposed to concentrate on cereals first, since cereals not only provide
around 70 percent of energy and protein but averages in their case are
quite representative for all, including poor households. Consumption of
cereals actually goes down as incomes of households increase. Thus, if
average consumption of cereals is found to be equal to recommended
levels, it projects quite a satisfactory picture, with poor households also
consuming at least average, if not higher quantity. Same thing cannot
be said of pulses, or for that matter other food items. The
consumption, and resultant cereals security, is very important for a
country like India which was characterised by a history of famines, has
vast and expanding population; low per capita income with around 29
percent or almost 250 million people living below poverty line; poor
access to health, education, safe drinking water, sanitation and other
social services etc. Top most priority for such a country is to get each
and every one of its people out of the clutches of hunger and
starvation and assure them security of at least cereals or what is
loosely called 'staple diets'. In a way this can also be described as food
security, albeit in a very narrow sense. Let me, however, hasten to add
that it will not be prudent for any country to confine itself to only such
food security; not certainly for India, which has been endowed with
such resources that providing a complete nutritious diet to every Indian
should not be beyond the capabilities of the country. The country must,
therefore, work towards achieving complete food and nutrition
security, even though elimination of hunger may have been the first
objective. In the ultimate analysis, the task is really one of around
development of the human resource and "human beings need tote]
nourishment for their growth, development and productivity. They need
a wide range of nutrients to perform various functions in the body.
These nutrients include protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and
minerals" (Rag, and others, 1989). As is well known, energy is vital for
activity, growth and rest while protein supplies the body building
material and help in recouping loss on account of wear and tear. These
two are the most important nutrient but there are many vitamins and
minerals that are needed by human body not only for carrying out
many vital functions of the body but also for helping in utilisation of
many nutrients like proteins, fats and carbohydrates. These are
required in small quantities but their importance is now being seriously
recognised. "It is now being increasingly realized that in the absence of
just one vitamin (Vitamin A) and two minerals (iron and iodine),
individuals and families suffer serious consequences expressed as
increased mortality, morbidity and disability rates; communities and
nations suffer losses in human potential, the social and economic costs
of which no country can afford". (Ramalingaswami, Montreal
Conference, 1991). What is, therefore, important is not only to assure
staple diets to all people but, in the meantime, work for dietary
education and diversification in ultimately achieving such a goal.
However, cereals availability and consumption to the full extent can
certainly be the starting point.
It is, therefore, proposed to first examine the consumption of cereals
against the norms set by the experts. While production and availability
projects a macro picture as discussed in Chapter 4, it is the
consumption data that indicates the household food security. It is
proposed to look essentially at the data on consumption of cereals and
other food items generated by the NNMB and Food and Nutrition Board
(FNB). Earlier in Chapter IV, we have already looked at the per capita
monthly consumer expenditure data thrown up during the household
surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation
(NSSO). Such data is also very useful in that it indicates the ability of
the households to stave off hunger if they spend less than certain
proportion of their incomes on food. "Households who spend 80 per
cent of their incomes on food and cannot meet at least 80 per cent of
their defined calorie needs are considered vulnerable and insecure".
(Bapna, 1993).
We can now look at the NNMB data on consumption of cereals and
other foodstuffs generated during their two surveys, 1975-79 and
1988-90. The Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI) has also been given.
The picture that emerges is given below:
Table 30 Average Consumption of Foodstuffs (gms/cu/day)
Foodstuff Year Posted RDI
avg.
consumpti
on
Coarse cereals & 1975- ·504 460
79
millets 1988- 490
90
Pulses 1975- 36 40
79
1988- 32
90
Roots & Tubers 1975- 48 50 -
79
1988- 40
90
Green Leafy 1975- 8 40
Vegetables 79
1988- 11
90
Other Vegetables 1975- 51 60
79
 1988- 49
90
Milk & Milk Products 1975- 100 150
79
1988- 96
90
Fats & Oils 1975- 12 20
79
1988- 13
90
Sugar & Jaggery 1975- 23 30
79
1988- 29
90
Source: NNMB (1991)
Before we proceed to analyse the NNMB data on food consumption, it
must be mentioned that the data suffers from some limitations. It is
based on a small sample of 750 households in only 10 states out of a
total of 32 states and union territories. Per consumption unit
consumption is assessed by one day weighment method in 80 per cent
households and 24 hour recall method in the rest; but success of these
methods depends on how forthcoming the lady of the house is and
how accurately she can recall. Further, the two surveys, cover a time
span of hardly 15 to 18 years, which is too small to assess the trends
very correctly. However, notwithstanding such limitations, the NNMB
surveys remain the only authentic, reliable and scientifically collected
information on nutritional consumption in India and its examination
and analysis, especially that of the disaggregated data, is expected to
present a fairly representative picture of the both national and
household food security.
It can be observed from Table No. 30 that consumption of cereals of
490 gms/cu/day in 198890 was higher than the RDI levels, which
confirm adequate production and availability of cereals in the country,
as brought out in Chapter 4. In fact, average consumption of cereals
was 30 gms. more than RDI or, in other words, there was a cushion of
6.5 per cent in the availability and consumption of cereals as recently
as in 1988-90. In view of the fact that around 70 per cent of the energy
comes from cereals alone, and better-off households consume less
cereals as their income rise, with their consumption of other food items
like milk, milk products, fruits, vegetables, eggs, mutton etc.
increasing, the cereal intake for even poor households should be quite
satisfactory; richer households would not normally overconsume a
commodity like cereals. The Working Group set up by Ministry of
Agriculture (April 1994) has found that average availability of cereals
during biennium 1991-93 has been of the order of 434 gins/capita/day,
which is equivalent to energy availability of 1501 kcal/capita/day. With
calories available from other foodstuffs, the total average energy
availability has been worked out to be 2400 kcal against the weighted
average energy requirement of only 2200 kcal. Thus, it appears that
availability of cereals at the macro level and through cereals, the
energy availability has been quite satisfactory during 1991-1993.
However, as far as intake of energy is concerned, there is absolutely no
certainty that the balance weighted average requirement of energy
i.e., 2200 minus 1501 or 699 or 700 kcal, would be available to poor
households from the other food items as given in the Working Group of
Agriculture, (April, 1994) calculations. Some poor households may be
consuming less than average quantities available for consumption as
shown in Table No.9 on account of inadequate purchasing power and
the better off households may be consuming more energy than
average.
Against the above background, a question can legitimately be posed. If
the availability of cereals and to a great extent energy, (and availability
can be the proxy for consumption, on account of insignificant exports)
is so comfortable, how come that 1987-88 estimate of the Planning
Commission indicate that 29 per cent of people were living below the
poverty line, not being able to consume 2200 kcal of energy, the
weighted average requirement for the entire population or 2400 kcal in
urban & 2400 kcal in rural areas ? How is that 8.7 per cent of preschool
children suffered from severe and 43.8 per cent from moderate
malnutrition as found by NNMB surveys during 198890 ? The
explanation probably lies in the variety of factors that may contribute
to malnutrition, even if a person may be consuming more than RDI
levels of cereals and other foodstuffs. These factors could be
unbalanced diets; poor food habits; unsafe drinking water; prevalence
of diseases like diarrhoea, gastroenteritis etc.; worms infestation; other
health problems and so on. One is, however, still prompted to persist
with the above question because granting presence of such factors,
the very fact that against the weighted average requirement of 2200
kcal energy and 50g protein, with the availability is 2400 kcal and 64.9
gms, the nutritional status of average Indian should have been better
than what emerges from data on poverty and malnutrition. An
examination of disaggregated data may be, therefore, important.
The mismatch can be examined by analysing the NNMB data on
average consumption of foodstuffs collected during 1988-90 according
to various groups in rural areas:
Table No. 31 Average Consumption of Foodstuffs by Per Capita
Income (PCI)
Consumption in gms/cu/day
PCI in its/Capita/month
 Per Cereal Pulse Total Roots & Fats Milk & Sugar &
s s Vegetable Tubers & Oils Product Jaggary
< 30 475 25 44 36 9 42 16
30-45 509 33 43 37 7 45 20
45-60 490 29 53 31 8 51 22
60-90 478 29 49 37 9 62 23
90- 479 29 57 41 11 86 17
150
150- 452 33 68 44 14 121 33
300
<300 454 43 81 56 25 230 91
Source: NNMB Report of Repeat Surveys, 1991.
It may be observed from the data given above that the well accepted
thesis of decline in cereal consumption with rising incomes is reflected
in the general trend evident from the data. While cereal consumption
was 475 gm/cu/da for the lowest PCI group, it was only 454 am. for the
highest income group. It is also observed that except for the two
highest PCI groups, the rest of the five groups have cereal consumption
higher than the RDI and even in case of two lowest PCI groups, it is
more than the ICMR norm of 460 gms. Intake of other foodstuffs was
below RDI for all groups except highest.
The NNMB had also carried out surveys on intake of food stuffs in
urban areas during 197579. The population was divided on
occupational lines-(i) High Income Group (HIG) consisting of highly
educated households occupying high positions in government (ii)
Middle Income Group (MIG) composed mainly of administrative staff at
middle rungs, (iii) Low Income Group (LIG) consisting of those
occupying lowest position in the government, (iv) Industrial Labour (IL)
and Slum Dwellers (SD). (NNMB Report on urban population, 1984).
The result of the survey were as given in Table No. 32.
Table No. 32 Average intake of Foodstuff in Urban Areas
(gm/cu/day)
Income Cereal Pulse Total M Fats &
Group s s vegetable ilk Oils
HIG 316 57 134 424 46
MIG 361 49 110 250 35
LIG 428 42 71 95 22
IL 420 41 69 98 23
SD 416 33 51 42 13
Source: NNMB (1984)
The picture relating to cereals consumption is more or less similar in
urban areas also. It is lowest at 316 gm/cu/day for HIG and highest at
428 gm/cu/day for LIG. In fact, the cereals consumption in urban areas
for all income groups is lower than in rural areas-the lowest income
group in rural areas with PCI less than Rs. 30 per month consuming
427 gms/cu/day as against only 420 gms/cu/day for LIG in urban areas.
Consumption of pulses was however higher than RDI except for SD and
consumption of other stuffs was much better than rural areas, except
for SD groups.
We also find that the lowest cereal consumption in urban areas was
amongst SD group (416 gms/cm/day) but this is substantially, lower
than the lowest PCI group in rural areas (475. gm/cm/day). In fact, the
cereal consumption of slum dwellers is even lower than the highest PCI
group in rural areas. The diversification of diets away from cereals in
urban areas is partially explained by better income opportunities in
urban areas. This also possibly explains, in a large measure, migration
to urban areas. In case of slum dwellers, however, the lower intake of
cereals is not accompanied by higher intake of other cereals,
suggesting special policy measures of this group of people.
I have not come across any empirical studies that have attempted to
explain this mismatching between consumption of cereals (providing
about 70 per cent of calorie requirements as also 75 per cent of
protein) and poverty (based on ability to have intake of certain
quantity of energy). There can, however, be a number of factors
working singly or in tandem, that may be able to explain this situation.
At this stage, these probable factors can be only posed as questions
beseeching some competent people to tackle them exclusively. Is it
that NNMB surveys based on a small sample and sampling
methodology have not been able to capture a truly representative
picture ? Is it that in the absence of superior or high energy foods, the
people with low incomes consume more than the RDI quantity of
cereals to make up for any shortages in the balanced diets ? Are the
RDI norms laid down for average Indian by the ICMR Expert Group
lower than what they should be, especially when one notices that the
DES of a Chinese in 1986-88 was 2637 kcal against only 2104 kcal for
an Indian ? Is it that with the recent disappearance of the old situation
of hunger for many people, they tend to eat more than RDI levels in
the short run simply to achieve a certain psychological satisfaction ? Is
any change in food habits or taste, influencing cereal consumption,
responsible for this ? Is this due to health related factors essentially ?
Do low per capita income have a relationship with this and if so, how
NSSO data on consumption expenditure can establish such relationship
? These and such others are the highly complicated questions that may
have to be examined and the entire matter covering them should
become a subject for a separate in depth study.
Consumption of Foodstuffs other than Cereals
As far as consumption of other foodstuffs is concerned, the picture as
thrown up by NNMB surveys is not as promising as in case of cereals.
Tables 31 and 32 will establish this. In case of all these foodstuffs,
there is a negative gap between the average consumption and RDI.
The brief analysis for each of the foodstuff is attempted hereunder:
Consumption of Pulses
The average RDI for pulses is 40 gms/cu/day. However, average intake
of pulses in rural areas is 32 gms/cu/day only. The weighted average
per capita requirement for the entire population, has, however, been
taken as 50 gins/capita/day (Agriculture Group, 1994). For different
income groups in rural areas, the intake of pulses is highest at 43 gms
for highest income group (over Rs.300 per capita per month). It is 33
arms for the next highest as also for the sixth PCI Group out of seven.
For all the other income groups, it varies between 25 gm to 29
gms/cu/day. In urban areas, the NNMB surveys indicate that except for
slum dwellers (consumption of pulses 33 gms/cu/day), all the other
income groups have higher than RDI consumption of pulses, with HIG
topping with a consumption of 57 gms/cu/day. Even LIG and IL groups
have slightly higher than RDI level with 42 and 41 gms/cu/day. Protein
intake of slum dwellers has to be monitored closely and it is quite
possible that due to lack of nutritional awareness, these people are
spending money on entertainment, drinking, clothes etc. but not
sparing enough for pulses or alternate sources of protein.
It is, however, clear that majority of Indians, especially in rural areas
consume less than RDI levels of pulses. For a majority of them, pulses
are the most important source of protein as they happen to be
vegetarians and cannot, therefore, make up for short-consumption and
poor absorption of cereal based protein by consuming meat, fish, egg
etc.
It is therefore, very important for India to increase production of pulses
by developing high yielding varieties, suitable both for rainfed and
irrigated conditions and usher in a mini-revolution in pulses production.
Consumption of Milk
The ICMR Expert Group's RDI for milk is 150 gm/cu/day. In rural areas,
only the highest PCI group has average consumption of milk higher
than RDI (230 gms/cu/day). Consumption of next highest PCI group is
121 gms/cu/day, whereas the lower five groups have intakes between
42 and 86 gms/cu/day. In rural areas, intake of milk is not only a
function of purchasing power but also of availability. Lot of work still
remains to be done in improving the breed of the non-descript cattle
we have in large parts of the rural India. Nutrition education and
awareness also needs to be improved.
In urban areas, HIG and MIG groups have milk consumption higher
than RDI at 424 and 250 gms/cu/day. That of LIG and IL group is low at
95 and 98 gms. However, the milk intake of slum dweller is extremely
low at 42 gms/cu/day. Similar efforts, as in case of pulses and protein
foods including awareness drive, need to be taken up amongst slum
dwellers.
Cosumptions of Fats/Oils
The RDI for fats/oils is 20 gms/cu/day. It is only the highest of the 7 PCI
groups in rural areas, which consumes higher than RDI levies (25
gm/cu/day) with all the other PCI group, consuming between 9 to 14
gms/cu/day. Lowest PCI group was found to be consuming (9 gms)
slightly higher than next two higher PCI groups. In urban areas, all
occupational groups, except the slum dwellers (13 gms/cu/day)
consume higher than RDI levels of fats/oils with HIG consuming higher
than double at 46 gms/cu/day. It will be useful for this group as well as
for the country, if their intake of oils/fats is reduced through proper
education.
Consumption of Vegetables
As against RDI of 100 gms/cu/day of all (40 gms of green leafy
vegetables plus 60 gms of other vegetables), the intake of all groups in
rural areas and those other than HIG & MIG groups in urban areas is
lower than RDI. It is as high as 134 gms. in case of HIG and 110 gms. in
case of MIG. For LIG, IL & SD groups, it ranges between 51 and 71 gms
i.e. less than RDI. Surprisingly, the intake is lower than RDI for all PCI
groups in rural areas. Apart form availability, optimum use of
vegetables is also very important so that washing and cooking of
vegetables is done in such a way that loss of nutrients is reduced to
minimum. This will go a long way in improving the general health of
the people and reduce anaemia which is still a big problem especially
amongst expectant and nursing mothers.
Intake of Foodstuffs by States
It will be very useful to also study the desegregated statewise data
with respect to average intake of foodstuffs, as it can help policy
makers in initiating special efforts in those States where situation is
unsatisfactory. The Figure Nos. 5 to 8 given hereinafter show the
average intake of the four important foodstuffs viz. cereals, pulses,
milk and fats/oils in 10 States surveyed by NNMB and another 8
surveyed by the FNB.
AVERAGE INTAKE OF CEREALS
AVERAGE INTAKE OF PULSES
AVERAGE INTAKE OF MILK
AVERAGE INTAKE OF FATS AND OILS
An analysis of the data given in the figures 5 to 8 gives following
picture:
Intake of Cereals
The cereals intake has been less than the RDI of 460 gms/cu/day per
day only in case of Tamil Nadu, Goa and Meghalaya. While a
relationship with poverty may not be accurately available for Goa and
Meghalaya, which are very small in size but in case of Tamil Nadu, low
intake of cereals is against the background of the State having 32.8
percent of its people below poetry line. Punjab which has the least
number of poor as a percentage to its population (only 7.2 percent), is
7th highest cereal consuming state out of the 18 States, On the other
hand, for Orissa which has the highest percentage of poor amongst all
the 18 surveyed States, the average cereals intake at 628 gm/cu/day is
not only very much higher than RDI of 460 gms but the highest in the
country.
Intake of Pulses
The RDI of pulses is 40 gm/cu/day. Only Karnataka (50 gms), M.P. (56
gms) Rajasthan (50 am) and UP (45 am) exceed it. All these states
have quite high proportion of population below poverty line.
Interestingly, Orissa, the State with maximum poor, has an average
pulses intake of 40 gms/cu/day, exactly the same as RDI. The averages
based on the sample surveys conducted by both NNMB and FNB seem
to throw up a confusing picture since Orissa has the highest
percentage of poor (44.7 percent) in the country yet its average
cereals intake is a record 628 gms against RDI of 460 gms and that of
pulses is exactly equal to RDI of 40 gms/cu/day. Its fats & oil
consumption as we will see later, is also third highest in the country.
Orissa not only has highest proportions of poor but also has recently
acquired some notoriety due to distress conditions in Kalahandi district
of the State.
Consumption of Milk
The RDI for milk/milk products is 150 gms/cu/day. We find that only
Punjab (very high at 396 gm/cu/day) and Karnataka (282 am) exceed
it. Milk consumption is not only a function of purchasing power but also
of local availability (because it cannot be easily transported to all
places and over long distances) and consumption behaviour. In tune
with its poverty, the milk intake in Orissa is one of the lowest, only
West Bengal and Meghalaya (more consumption of tea than milk?)
being lower than Orissa.
Consumption of Fats/Oils
The RDI for fats and oils is 20 gms/cu/day. Gujarat, which is the biggest
producer of oil seeds and manufacturer of oils naturally tops the list
with consumption of 21 gms/cu/day Next in consumption are Punjab
(also consumes lot of fresh butter, cheese) with 17 gms/cu/day. Orissa,
inspite its higher proportion of poor is third with an intakes of 16
gms/cu/day. On the other side of the spectrum, Utter Pradesh a food-
surplus, state and a state which also grows quite a bit of oilseeds,
ranks lowest with fats/oils intake of only 4 gms/cu/day. Bihar, Goa,
Meghalaya, Rajasthan & Tripura also have very low consumption of
fats/oils at 7 gms/cu/day.
Changes in food consumption
Before we move on to examine the status of intake of nutrients, we
may have a look at the changes in foodstuff consumption at the
national level between 1975-79 when NNMB carried out first surveys
and 1988-90 when it undertook repeat surveys. The position is shown
in Figure No. 9.
Figure 9 CHANGES IN FOOD CONSUMPTION
(During 1975-79 & 1988-90)
It is seen that per consumption unit intake of cereals, pulses,
roots/tubers, other vegetables and milk/milk products has declined
during this period while that of green leafy vegetables, sugar/jaggery
and fats/oils has increased. However, the position must have
undergone a change recently for the better in case of almost all the
foodstuffs, because production of almost all food items has shown an
increasing trend since 1988-89, the year following the severe drought
of 1987.
INTAKE OF NUTRIENTS
Energy intake
Figure No. 10 shows the statewise average intake of energy in rural
areas as against the RDI (2400 k cal.cu/day). Incidentally, the RDI of
energy of 2400 kcal also defines poverty in rural areas. The average
dietary intake per consumption unit per day is 2280 kcal which is quite
close of RDI. however, there are sharp inter-state variations as shown
in Table 10.
AVERAGE INTAKE OF ENERGY
Punjab having the least percentage of poor and surplus food
production, logically enjoys the highest average energy intake of 2760
kcal. However, as was observed in respect of cereals, pulses and
fats/oils intake for Orissa, it has a high average intake of 2700 kcal of
energy, much higher than the RDI, which also happens to be next only
to Punjab. Madhya Pradesh, which also ranks very high in the poverty
scale enjoys third highest energy intake, again substantially higher
than RDI. West Bengal and Karnataka also have energy intake higher
than RDI. State of Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat fall behind RDI only
marginally. In the remaining States, it is less than the RDI. It, therefore,
appears that although the energy intake of 2400 kcal/cu/day defines
the poverty, the direct relationship between energy intake and poverty
does not hold good universally and may be influenced by more
consumption of carbohydrates and that too in larger quantities as can
be experienced during visits to rural areas of Orissa or Madhya
Pradesh.
The energy intake among rural and urban proxy income groups is
shown in Figures No. 11 and 12.
ENERGY INTAKE OF RURAL POPULATION

ENERGY INTAKE OF URBAN POPULATION

It is observed that in the rural areas, average energy intake is highest
among cultivators (2514 kcal./cu/day) against pooled average of 2340
kcal. This is understandable as the cultivators tend to keep a portion of
their produce for self consumption. The lowest (2043 kcal) is amongst
the landless agriculture labourers, which, therefore, is the category
that needs maximum attention as far as food & nutrition security is
concerned. In urban areas, highest energy intake is by HIG (2603 kcal)
and lowest (2008 kcal) by slum dwellers who consume less energy
even as compared to the lowest income rural category of landless
agricultural labourers and therefore, require special attention if food &
nutrition security is it be assured for them.
Protein intake
The national average intake of protein as reflected in NNMB surveys
comes to 62 gms/cu/day which is slightly above the RDI of 60
gms/cu/day. However, here again, pronounced Statewise variations are
seen as will be observed from Figure No 13.
AVERAGE INTAKE OF PROTEIN
Punjab again leads all other States with an average protein intake of 85
gms. Madhya Pradesh, even though having large proportion of poor in
its population, is second with 82.5, probably because of very high
production of pulses and soybean, part of the production being kept
back by even poor growers for self consumption. High average intake
of protein in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat can also be explained by same
logic. Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir,
Meghalaya and Rajasthan also have protein intake higher can RDI. The
States which are lagging behind are Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil
Nadu, West Bengal. Sikkim and Tripura appear to be low due to poor
production of pulses and high transport cost of pulses imported from
other parts of the country, as also poor state of the milch animals.
Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and W.Bengal can increase their protein
foods and supplement it by fish and should quickly attain at least RDI
levels of protein intake. In fact, with tremendous increase in fish and
eggs in A.P., the protein intake in that state will be quite different in
next surveys.
Intake of Micro-nutrients
It is observed from the NNMB surveys during 1975-79 that in the urban
areas, the aggregate intake levels of iron were higher in all income
group than ICMR recommended level. In respect of Vitamin A, however,
deficiencies existed among all groups except the High Income Group.
As shown below, the slum dwellers are at the bottom for both, as they
were in case of energy and protein intake:
Table 33 AVERAGE INTAKE OF IRON AND VITAMIN "A" IN URBAN
AREAS
IN TAKE OF
GROUP IRON (in Vit "A" (in
ma) ug.)
HIG 27.3 881
MIG 26.7 555
LIG 26.5 332
UK 26.3 352
SD 24.9 248
RDA (ICMR) 24.0 750
SOURCE: NNMB Report, 1981.
The data on intake of iron and Vitamin A in respect of rural areas is
given below:
Table 34 AVERAGE INTAKE OF IRON AND VITAMIN A IN RURAL
AREAS
IN TAKE OF
YEAR IRON (in Vit "A" (in
ma) ug.)
1975 31.8 263
1977 29.3 262
1979 30.3 270
1981 31.7 373
1982 30.4 366
1983 31.1 300
1988-89 30.5 352
RDA (ICMR) 24.0 750
It will be observed from the data for rural areas that average iron
consumption has remained around 30 mg/cu/day against the ICMR
norm of 24 ma. Thus, iron intake for rural population as a whole
appears higher than RDI. These high intakes of iron should however be
taken with a pinch of salt. It is common knowledge that there are large
groups at risk, especially pre-school children and pregnant/lactating
mothers, who suffer from iron deficiency anaemia. It has been
estimated in various studies, particularly those conducted by NIN, that
"roughly 55 percent preschool children and almost 50 percent of the
expectant mothers in the third trimester of pregnancy, suffer from iron
deficiency, which is basically due to inadequate or poor absorption of
iron form a predominantly cereal based diet". (NIN, 1993). The problem
is vegetarian diets, which have iron but not much of that is absorbed
by the body in view of blocking substances that such foods, especially
cereals, contain. Iron deficiency anaemia is also prevalent amongst
non-vegetarians also, because very few of them can afford non-
vegetarian food on a regular basis. "It is therefore, necessary to
educate the masses about the rich sources of iron and associated
factors like positive influence of Vitamin 'C' or the citrus fruits on the
absorption of iron, negative influence of tea/coffee in the diet and role
of hookworm infestation, material parasites etc. in aggravating the
situation" (Dr. Smt. Ramachandran, 1993). India was, however, among
the very first amongst developing countries to take up a prophylaxis
programme amongst pregnant women and children, essentially
through iron foliate administration. Besides, fortication of common
foods with iron and required medical interventions are also indicated.
IODINE DEFICIENCY
It is only recently that experts and policy makers have fully realised
that endemic goiter and cretinism is not the only manifestation of
iodine deficiency. "The term iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) now
covers a wide spectrum of effects leading to human misery and
degradation that are largely irreversible, once manifested. The long list
of clinical disorders which are now ascribed to iodine deficiency,
starting from still birth and abortion to goiter and various types of
mental retardation and finally to cretinism, the most cruel form of IDD,
is indeed scaring" (Kalyan Bagchi, July 1993). To make things worse,
IDD can affect human beings at any stage, even during his intra-
uterine existence. In meeting the challenge of IDD, the policy makers
have to appreciate that iodine deficiency is not really related to dietary
deficiency but originates from lack of adequate iodine in the soil itself.
Thus, whoever lives off that soil, rich or poor, will have IDD because
neither the water nor any other produce will supply him adequate
iodine which is considered to be just 120 to 150 microgram per day.
Those living in coastal areas have, of course, the advantage of intake
of large quantity of sea food which contains substantial quantities of
iodine. The only way to tackle the IDD is, therefore, to either add iodine
to food or water consumed by people at risk or through oral/injected
medication. The most popular method, which is also followed in India,
is to iodise the salt at the time of manufacture and ensure that only
such salt is consumed in endemic areas. Considering the problem of
non-iodised salt being cheaper than iodised, Govt. of India has decided
that statutory change over to iodised salt will be undertaken in phases
and completed by 1995. In India, IDD is highly prevalent in a broad
sub-Himalayan belt, almost 2400 km. long, stretching from Kashmir in
North to Naga hills in the East. Surveys conducted by the Central
Goitre Survey team during past two decades indicate that around 54
million people suffer not only from endemic goitre and cretinism but
other manifestations of IDD, like deaf-mutism, mental retardation and
various degrees of neuro-motor dysfunctions. It is estimated that "with
every passing hour 10 children are born in this country who will not
attain their optimum mental and physical potential due to neo-natal
hypothyroidism caused by iodine deficiency". (IDD Project document,
Min of H.& FW, 1993)
Government of India had launched a National Goitre Control
Programme in 1962 with focus on consumption of iodised salt in
endemic areas. This programme was converted into National Iodine
Deficiency Disorder Control Programme in August 1992 to emphasise
the wider spectrum of the fight against IDD. An important element of
the new programme was to ultimately ban non-iodised salt. 22 of the
32 States /UTs have accordingly banned entry of noniodised salt in
these States/UTs. Programme includes establishing more plants to
manufacture iodised slat, privatisation of the industry, provision of
subsidy to such industries, monitoring consumption of iodised salt,
conducting surveys to identify extent of IDD, conducting training and
improving communications.
It is, thus, brought out by NNMB data on consumption of food items
and nutrients that:
a) While energy and protein intake at the national level may
appear quite satisfactory, which is also indicated by the
availability of foodstuffs as worked out by the Working Group of
the Ministry of Agriculture (April, 1994), the situation varies
greatly between states. Although there is a mix-match between
consumption of energy and proportion of people below poverty
line, exemplified forcefully by Orissa, the difference in
consumption would really be due to prevalence of poverty, status
of health and educational attainments.
b) While food security, especially limited to cereals or staple
diets, appears quite satisfactory, even at the household levels,
such security appears to have been achieved by poor households
by paying a social cost, like making their children work, working
 at lower than statutory minimum wages, putting long hours of
hard work, working in hazardous and unhealthy environment etc.
c) It has been brought out that notwithstanding some
improvements, certain' groups of households like those having
no land and agricultural labourers in rural areas and slum
dwellers in urban areas are still relatively more food-insecure.
The most satisfying indication is an improvement in the
nutritional status of pre-school children.
d) While food security position is somewhat satisfactory, the
nutritional security is still a distant reality. No doubt, production
of other foodstuffs like milk, mutton, eggs, fish, fruits etc. has
shown sharp increases in recent years which may give an
improved picture of nutrition security during surveys conducted
in future.

10. Summary and conclusions

1. DEMOGRAPHIC SITUATION
India is the second most populous country in the world. With 2.4
percent of world's land area, it supports 16 percent of world's
population. Inspite of being one of the first developing country to adopt
the family planning programme, the population explosion continues
unabated, with population equivalent to Australia's being added every
year. A small ray of hope is that the growth rate of population has
declined for the first time in recent years from 2.2 percent to 2.14
percent during the decade 1981-1991. However, even if the growth
rate is reduced to 1.6 percent, the population might cross one billion
mark by 2000 AD. The main reason for such population growth has
been, "the fall in the crude death rate from 22.8 (per 1000 population)
in 1951 to 10.2 in 1989, is greater than the fall from 41.7 to 30.5 in the
birth rate, during the same period." (RGI of India, 1991). "The fertility
rate and mortality level on the one hand and age distribution of the
population on the other are such that even after attaining NRR:1 by
2000 AD, the Zero growth rate of population may be achieved only
after several decades". (Ministry of Health & F.W., Annual Report 1993-
94). The burgeoning population not only marginalises the
achievements that the nation has made on the economic front but also
does not allow the country to substantially enhance the Food and
Nutrition security of the people.
2. PER CAPITA INCOME
It is extremely important for household food security in a low income
country like India, that the growth rate of per capita income is
substantial and its distribution among households is commensurate
with prevailing disparities in incomes. However, it is imperative that
there is sustained and substantive growth in the first instance,
otherwise the country can neither have distributive mechanisms nor
can it find resources for poverty alleviation and food security
programmes. The growth in per-capita incomes in India has not been
what one would have desired, although it has also not been too
insignificant. Index number of the per capita Net National Product,
which was 100 in 1950-51 at 1980:81 prices is estimated to have risen
to 196.6 during 1992-93, thereby registering an average increase of
2.36 percent per annum. During last five year period between 1988-89
and 1992-93, the average annual growth, however, declined to 1.0 per
cent. In fact, 1990-91 was a year of crisis for Indian economy, with
overall economic growth declining to 1.1 percent in 1991-92. The
programme of stabilisation and economic reform measures helped
restore economic growth to 4 percent in 1992-93". (Economic Survey,
1993 94) In any case, these modest growth rates in per capita income
or in the economy as a whole, coming as they were on an already poor
base were not good enough to leave a strong impact on the food and
nutritional well being of the poor households and but for the existence
of extensive rural development programmes backed with a massive
public distribution system, the quality of life of the poor households
could not have been maintained at the existing levels. Matters were
certainly helped by a quantum jump in foodgrains production in 1988-
89, when it reached the level of around 170 million tonnes against
around 140-143 million tonnes high of previous two years. Foodgrains
production thereafter remained between 170 to 180 million tonnes
during the next four years. The index of industrial production also rose
from 180.9
(Base: 1980-81) in 1988-89 to 212.4 in 1991-92, registering an
average annual growth rate of 4.3 per cent. (Economic Survey, 1993-
94)
3. FOOD SECURITY AT MACRO LEVEL
(i) Banishment of raw hunger and starvation
Famines, the extreme form of hunger and starvation, were a regular
feature in India's history, the last one being the great Bengal famine,
which is known to have consumed around 3.5 million lives. At the time
of independence in 1947, India started with a handicap as far as food
security was concerned, with India getting 75 percent of the cereal
production and 82 percent of the population of the undivided country.
However, the food and agriculture policy; the PDS and employment
generation programmes; the enterprise and hard work of the Indian
farmers; the development of new high yielding varieties by scientists
and the transfer of new agricultural technology with arrangements for
supply of inputs by agricultural administrators, saw to it that India was
never again ravaged by famines. The country developed the capacity
to meet the challenges posed by sharp decline in harvests due to
droughts and other natural calamities. The last drought of 1987,
considered one of the most severe of the century, was faced with
country's own food and other resources and it was ensured that
foodgrains were made available in each nook and corner of the country
through public distribution system and food for work programmes. No
part of the country suffered from starvation, even during the worst
period of drought. The country has, thus, made substantial progress in
improving the food security, at least in ensuring that no household is
required to face hunger and starvation.
(ii) Self Sufficiency in Cereals
The country has achieved self sufficiency as far as the requirement of
cereals is concerned. The food policies, including maintenance of
national buffer, have seen to it that year to year fluctuations in the
production of cereals are taken care of, without any adverse impact on
cereal availability and prices. Import of cereal has become an
occasional affair, the last imports having been made in 1988 and 1992.
Even when imports are required to be made, these constitute hardly
1.5 percent of the indigenous production. The comfortable situation, as
far as availability of cereal is concerned, has been discussed in chapter
IV. The requirement and availability of cereals has been determined
under two scenarios. The first one uses the ICMR (1990) standards of
deduction factor from production to availability for consumption and
norms for daily per capita requirement and the second one uses the
standards adopted by the Inter-Ministerial Working Group set up by the
Ministry of Agricultural (April 1994) for the same two parameters. The
data has been analysed for the triennial 1991-93; Under the first
scenario, with stiffer standards, it is found that the total availability of
cereal during the three years period was 369.60 million tonnes against
the requirement of 389.91 million tonnes, the satisfaction ratio being
about 95%. Under the second scenario, net availability of cereals has
been found to be 412.79 million tonnes against the requirement of
364.38 million tonnes, giving a satisfaction ratio of 113.4%. Even if the
mid-view is taken, it appears that availability of cereals during this
latest biennium at the national level has been quite satisfactory.
(iii) Consumption of Cereals and Energy
The surveys conducted by the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau
(NNMB) of the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) during the two sets
of periods, 1975-79 and 1988-90, indicate that the daily per
consumption unit intake of cereal has been more than recommended
dietary intake of 460 gm/cu/day. It was found to be 504 gm during the
first survey period and 490 gm during the second (1988-90). Even at
490 gms, the average intake of cereals is about 6.5 percent higher
than RDI. The average intake of energy at 2280 kcal was, found to be
slightly less than recommended 2400 kcal/cu/day (for male sedentary
workers). The working group set up by the Min of Agriculture (April
1994) has, however, found that on an average, 1501 kcal of energy is.
available from cereals alone. It has further been indicated that
considering the availability of energy from other food stuffs, including
food from animal source, the overall energy availability from all the
food stuffs is 2400 kcal, against the weighted average per capita
requirement of 2200 kcal for the entire population. It, therefore,
appears that availability of energy also is quite satisfactory. The
contradiction between adequate intake of cereals and energy on one
hand and high proportion of people below poverty line as well as
prevailing malnutrition on the others, has been discussed in detail in
chapter 4.
(iv) Consumption of Pulses & Protein
The consumption of pulses, which is the most important source of
protein in India's predominantly vegetarian society is, however, found
to be less than RDI levels. The main reason for this is stagnating
production of pulses and consequent decline in the per capita
availability. Access to available pulses is further impaired due to their
high cost. The intake of pulses between two NNMB surveys has come
down from 36 gm to 32 gm/cu/day, against the ICMR norm of 40
gms/cu/day. The Working Group of Min. of Agriculture has, however,
found that taking into consideration availability of protein from various
food stuffs, the total per capita availability comes to 54.9 gm against
the weighted average per capita requirement of 50 am. This may have
happened due to substantial increase in the production of milk, eggs,
mutton, fish etc. But unlike cereals, the average protein consumption
at macro level does not indicate the required consumption at
household levels also, as there could be over consumption of protein
rich food stuffs unlike that of cereals. It is also necessary to look at Net
Protein Utilization against the background of predominantly cereal
based diets of Indians.
(v) Consumption of other food stuffs & nutrients
It has also been brought out from available data (Ref Chapter 9) that
production, availability and consumption of other food stuffs like
vegetables, milk/milk products, Fats/oils, roots/ tubers etc. is below
what is nutritionally required. There has been hardly any change in the
consumption of various food stuffs between 1975-79 and 1988-90, with
marginal decline in pulses and slight increase in green leafy vegetables
and fats/oils with substantial increase in sugar/jaggery. In case of
intake of nutrients also, the situation remains more or less same
between the two periods. Intake of energy, protein, iron and Thiamine
remained more or less unchanged but equal to or higher than RDI
levels. Vitamin 'A', Vitamin 'C' and Riboflavin remained below RDI
levels and more or less unchanged except Vitamin 'A', which showed a
welcome increase. The overall poor status of nutritional security thus
did not show any marked sign of improvement, mainly because of
burgeoning population and purchasing power of poor households not
keeping pace with rising prices.
4. HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY
(i) Improvement in Poverty situation
There has been a progressive decline in the prevailing poverty in India,
which must have left its positive impact on household food security.
The proportion of population below poverty line declined from 51.5
percent in 1972-73 to 29.4 percent in 1987-88. The decline has been
observed in both rural and urban areas, although it was substantially
higher (51 percent) in urban areas as compared to rural areas (38
percent). It only confirms that the problem of household food security
is much more serious in rural areas, requiring special and enhanced
efforts for enabling the poor households in rural areas to generate a
certain minimum level of income. Large variations have been seen
within states, the range being from 7.2 percent in Punjab to 44.7
percent in Orissa. The decline in poverty has, however, been noticed in
all states, the credit for which, in large measure, goes to various
employment generation and asset building programmes in rural
development sector, existence of PDS which helps in keeping a check
on prices if not fully meeting the foodgrains requirement of poor and
special nutrition programmes aimed at the most vulnerable groups.
(ii) Consumption of cereals & other nutrients
NNMB surveys, though a little outdated with last repeat survey having
been done during 198890, show that inspite of more than RDI level
consumption of cereals at macro level, certain groups of households
like no-land and agricultural labourers in rural areas and slum dwellers
in urban areas are able to consume much less than the national and
even state level intake of cereals. However, situation may have
improved now, with substantially stepped up outlays in rural
development sector and agricultural production, including food from
animal sources, having gone up substantially during last few years and
fresh surveys, as and when published, may demonstrate this. However,
the very absence of any reports of hunger or scarcity conditions from
any part of the country indicate that the household food security, at
least limited to cereals or staple diets, has improved significantly. As
regards consumption of pulses, other food stuffs and various nutrients,
the consumption of lower per capita income households in rural areas
and low income occupation groups and slum dwellers in urban area is
less than the averages at macro level. Thus, while security of cereals
for even poor households seems to be quite satisfactory, the nutrition
security at household level is still a distant dream.
(iii) Consumer expenditure on food
The per capita monthly consumer expenditure data generated by the
National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) indicates a healthy trend
of decline in expenditure on cereals. Such decline has been noticed
both in urban and rural areas as also in various income groups.
However, the poorest households were still earmarking around 60 to
65 percent of their monthly consumer expenditure on food items, of
which 42 percent in rural areas and 25 percent in urban areas was on
cereals alone. There was pronounced variation amongst states. For
example, while the share of expenditure on cereals in Punjab was only
17 percent during 1972-73 and declined further to 10 percent during
1980-91, it was as high as 52 and 40 percent respectively in case of
Orissa. The structure of per-capita consumer expenditure corroborates
the consumption picture that emerged from the surveys or NNMB and
FNB. In any case, the overall picture indicates a shift of expenditure
from cereals to other items which indicates an improvement in
household food security. Since no income group was found to be
spending 80 percent or more on food, it can be inferred that families at
risk would be an exception.
(iv) Employment and asset generation
Recognising that unemployment is the real breeding ground for
poverty and as an important part of the endeavour to launch a direct
attack on poverty, India has been implementing employment
generation and asset building programmes since eighties. A total of
4371 million mandays of work has been created since its inception till
1990-91 under programmes like National Rural Employment
Programme, Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme and
Jawahar Rojgar Yojna which would have provided 43 million poor
households with at least 100 days of food security in a year. A new
scheme, the Employment Assurance Scheme, has been started in 1750
Blocks covered by Revamped PDS to guarantee employment during
lean agricultural season. The asset building programme, Integrated
Rural Development Programme, has assisted another 42 Million
families since its inception in 1980-81 and notwithstanding the
inherent problem in transformation of a poor family into an
entrepreneur-manager, quite a few of these families must have
permanently come out of poverty zone and substantially improved
their access to food and nutrition.
(v) Public Distribution System
This biggest grain distribution programme in the world, though it still
suffers from non-targeting to poor and allowing some benefits to be
used by non poor, has contributed substantially to assuring food
security to trillions of households, especially during periods of stress.
The programme has recently been revamped in 1750 Blocks, covering
poor and disadvantaged tribal, hilly, drought prone and decertified
areas. It is expected that with such revamping, no household will be
left uncovered, monthly entitlement of rations will go up, they would
get foodgrains at prices even lower than normal PDS and consequently
the food security of households living in these poor areas will improve.
The next step, strongly recommended by the author in a study report
presented to the Minister, Civil Supplies, Consumer Affairs and Public
Distribution in Sept. 1993, is to keep only poor households under the
converge of PDS to make it a sharper instrument of household food
security.
(vi) Direct attack on malnutrition
It is also necessary to launch a direct attack on malnutrition by
providing supplementary nutrition to vulnerable groups like children up
to 6 years of age, expectant and nursing mothers. Of the many
important programmes in this area discussed in detail in Chapter VIII,
the Integrated Child Development Services Programme is the most
important and biggest and seeks to provide a package of integrated
services consisting of supplementary nutrition, health check up and
educational services to children up to six years and expectant/nursing
mothers. The programme now includes 3066 projects with 19.5 million
children and mothers receiving supplementary nutrition. An evaluation
of the programme has revealed that in ICDS areas IMR, immunisation
coverage, Vit 'A' prophylaxis programme, the nutritional status of
children and percentage of low birth weight children was significantly
better than other areas. The programme, therefore, appears to be
contributing significantly to food and nutrition well being of the poorer
household, although there are many areas where the programme
needs to be improved. The other programmes like Special Nutrition
Programme, Balwadi Nutrition Programme, Creches for Children of
working and ailing women, Wheat based nutritional programme, World
Food Programme, CARE assisted nutrition programme, Tamil-nadu
Integrated Nutrition Project etc. are all attempting to directly intervene
and improve the food and nutritional status of the vulnerable
categories in poor households.
5. HEALTH AND NUTRITIONAL RELATED INDICATORS OF FOOD
AND NUTRITION SECURITY
(i) Nutritional Status of Children and Mothers
The nutritional status of children in 1 to 5 years group has improved.
Severe malnutrition amongst them has declined from 15 percent
during the NNMB surveys of 1977-79 to 8.7 percent during 1998-90.
Simultaneously, the percentage of normal children has gone up from
5.9 percent to 9.9 percent. However, there has not been a substantial
change in the infant mortality, the decline being from 129 per 1000
live births in 1971 to 80 in 1991. Below 5 mortality, has came down
from 53 per 1000 children in 1970 to 35 in 1987. It is considered
necessary to pay special attention to children, when they are 6 to 8
months old, since it is the time when they are likely to be more
vulnerable to infections. Role of education and extension becomes very
apparent in tackling these problems.
Birth weight of infants is an important indicator of the nutritional status
of a society. It has a direct bearing on chances of survival of the child
and this indirectly influences the adoption of family planning by
couples. NIN has indicated that infants weighing less than 2.5 kilogram
can be considered low birth weight and of the children born, as high as
30 percent fall in such category. However, from our practical
experience in field, including ICDS, it seems that the standard of 2.5
kg. in Indian conditions for birth weight appear to be high and 2 Kg.
seems to be nearer the average and only those with birth weight less
than that may be considered as low birth weight babies. It is felt that
focus and programmes should be on such babies.
Birth weight of infants also exhibits a pronounced relationship with the
nutritional status of the mothers. As the Body Mass Index (BMI defined
as weight in kg. divided by square of height in metres) of mothers
increases, the mean birth weight of children was also increasing. The
incidence of low birth weight babies was highest (53 percent) amongst
the nutritionally poorest mothers falling in CED Grade III (BMI less than
16). It gradually declined and was only 14.7 percent amongst normal
mothers (BMI 18.5 to 25). (NIN, 1993)
Infant morality, child morality, birth weights and overall nutritional
status of children is closely linked with mothers nutritional status and
this clearly brings out the relevance of tackling at risk children and
mothers together, which a programme like ICDS should be able to do.
Child rearing practices also influence the nutritional and health status
of both children and mothers. In India, child bearing begins early, with
8 percent births at age less than 18 years. On the average, there are
6/7 pregnancies of which there are 5/6 live births and 4/5 children
survive. (Ready, Vinodini & others, 1992). Such early and heavy child
rearing naturally affects the health & nutrition status of mothers &
babies.
(ii) Life expectancy at birth
India has made steady progress in the matter of life expectancy, which
indicates overall improvement in the health conditions of the people. It
was 45 years during the decade ending 1971, 54 years in 1981 and 62
years in 1991. During the earlier decades, female life expectancy was
less than male, but since 1981-86, the females are enjoying better life
expectancy than males ( 59.1 years as compared to 58.1 years for
males) and thus balancing to some extent, higher mortality rates
among women. ( Reddy, Vinodini and others, 1992).
(iii) Nutritional status of adults
There is slight improvement in the nutritional status of adults as per
NNMB data of the surveys done between 1975-79 and 1988-90.
Adopting a BMI value less than 18.5 to indicate chronic energy
deficiency (CED), it has been found that 42.1 percent of the adult
males were normal during 1975-79 while their percentage increased to
48.4 during 1988-90. In case of female adults, the percentage of
normal females declined marginally from 44.8 to 46.6 percent during
the same period. However, in the severest category CED with BMI less
than 16, the percentage improved both for male and female adults-
declining from 11.4 to 8.8 percent in case of males and from 12.7 to
11.3 percent for females. (N.I.N., 1993). It has also been found that
only 39.2 percent of the landless agricultural labourers were normal
with 60.3 percent having CED. Cultivators and artisans had better
nutritional status than the landless agricultural labourers but variation
was not more than 15 percent.
6. MICRONUTRIENT DEFICIENCIES
(i) Vitamin A deficiency
Deficiency of Vitamin A in conjunction with Protein-Energy malnutrition
is estimated to cause nutritional blindness amongst millions of children
and "it has been estimated that around 60 thousand children get blind,
"(NNP, 1993). Starting with no manifestation in infants, its prevalence
increases with age with school age children from all income groups
showing high incidence. Government of India has been implementing a
Vitamin A prophylaxis programme whereunder children between 9
months and 3 years age are administered a massive dose of Vitamin-A
every 6 months. However, the menace has also to be fought by
educating and encouraging people to consume more of Vitamin-A rich
foodstuffs, both vegetative and animal source. In a country like India,
promotion of horticulture, kitchen-gardening and nutrition education
can also play an important role.
(ii) Iron deficiency
Iron deficiency anaemia impairs physical work capacity, mental
development and enhances maternal morbidity and mortality. It is
widely prevalent, especially amongst pregnant women and children. In
India, although the consumption of iron has been found to be above
RDI levels, the inadequate and poor absorption of iron creates the
problem. In case of pregnant women, if Haemoglobin levels below 11
g/dl in considered anaemic, as many as 87 percent would be anaemic.
If, however, 7-9 g/dl are considered as normal, 46 percent pregnant
woment will fall in this category. About 13% having less than 7 g/dl
hemoglobin are very much at risk. Around 56 percent of pre school
children have also been categorized by NIN as anaemic. National
Anaemia Prophylaxis Programme, targeted on these vulnerable groups,
and based on distribution of iron folate tablets has been in existence
since 1970 and is being now given a new thrust. Efforts are also on to
double fortify edible salt with iron also besides iodine.
(iii) Iodine Deficiency
Prevalence of goitre and, even worse, cretinism due to iodine
deficiency disorders in endemic form is another serious public health
problem in India. Nearly 54 million persons are estimated to be
suffering from goitre in known endemic areas covering entire
Himalayan and sub-Himalayan belt. An ICMR survey (1989) of 14
districts in India recorded an overall goitre prevalence rate of 21
percent and cretinism rate of 0.7%, (NIN, 1993). "In these areas, apart
from cretinism, children show varying degrees of thyroid deficiency and
developmental defects. In villages of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where
goitre prevalence was high, deaf mutism, mental retardation and other
clinically detectable problems of environmental iodine deficiency were
found in 4 percent of the children." (Ready, Vinodini and others, NIN,
Dec. 1992). Realizing the seriousness of the problem, Government of
India has revamped the Iodine Deficiency Disorders control
programme.
7. MATERNAL AND CHILD CARE
It hardly needs any emphasis that within the overall health services in
a country, it is the extent and spread of maternal and child care that
greatly influences the status of household food and nutrition security.
The type of care received at child birth is often critical for the health
and survival of both infant and mother. A significant proportion of neo-
natal deaths is attributed to poor birth practices. During 1987, only
about 32% of births in rural areas and 74% in urban areas were in
institutions or attended to by a trained personnel. "Recent reports
show that tetanus toxide immunization coverage is 77% for the
pregnant women in India. Started in 1960 and boosted in the second
half of 1980s by the Immunisation Mission, this intervention is picking
up. The national average of tetanus toxide coverage however masks
the variations between states ranging from 16% in Assam to 99% in
Kerala". (Ready, Vinodini and others, NIN, 1992). Illegal abortions is yet
another big problem. A UNICEF report (1990) has estimated that only
around half a million pregnancy terminations were performed through
health services in the fiscal year 1987-88, which is around 9% of the
induced abortions likely to have been performed. As far as family
planning is concerned, the trends are not very encouraging. Present
protection of couples by all methods is only 41%. The National Health
Policy seeks to raise it to 60% by 2000 A.D.
Exclusive breast feeding of child up to at least 4 months is now being
vigorously promoted. Lot of progress is yet to be made regarding
timely and adequate supplementation with proper weaning food.
Gender bias in breast feeding, weaning and supplementation practices,
apportionment of quality food etc., reported by some experts and
recent reports of foetal killings are also new areas to be tackled.
8. FEMALE LITERACY
It is often said that education is the source for all development. It's
impact on food and nutritional well being of people cannot be ignored,
Kerala being the shining example. Within education, it is the female
literacy that is one of the very important indicators of food and
nutrition security. Progress of literacy in India has been quite
impressive, both for males and females. At the time of independence in
1947, the female literacy in India was just 6 percent. Now in 1991, it is
39.4 percent. However, the growth in female literacy has been lower
than that for males. This needs to be corrected. There is also great
variation among states in female literacy rates. It was as high as 79
percent in Kerala but between 20 to 32 percent in the four most
populous and poor states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh
and Bihar. A massive endeavour to improve female literacy rates,
especially in states having very large populations and low rates, needs
to he undertaken since female literacy is known to have close
correlation with early marriages, fertility rates, child mortality and even
optimum use of food and nutrition already available at the household
level. Literacy must include functional literacy and awareness building,
without which optimal utilization of available resources and services is
also not being achieved.
To sum up food security seems to have improved in India, both at the
national and the household levels. The trends in consumption of
energy and protein during the fifteen years covered by surveys
conducted by NNMB, FNB and NSSO have been positive but modest.
This progress, especially in consumption pattern of poorest households
like landless agricultural labourers and in reduction in proportion of
severely malnourished pre-school age children has been achieved in
the face of burgeoning population. These surveys covered a period
only up to 1988-90. A recent exercise undertaken by the Ministry of
Agriculture (April. 1994) has indicated that because of an improvement
in the availability of various food stuffs, including those from animal
source where a major breakthrough seems to have been achieved, a
comfortable picture is noticeable as far as availability of energy and
protein is concerned. India can legitimately take pride in the fact that
inspite of a history of famines and 16 to 18 million people being added
to its already huge population, it has developed the capacity to ensure
that no household is again required to face famines, widespread
hunger and starvation. Whatever the data and their analysis may
indicate, the fact remains that no manifestation of raw hunger and
starvation is there since it just cannot go unnoticed in India with a
press and host of political parties out to pull up the government at the
very first opportunity. The food, at least of cereals, availability is thus,
quite comfortable, even though poor households may have achieved
this security at a certain social cost, like many children going to work
rather than to schools; labourers being forced to work at wages less
than statutory minimum wages; people having to migrate to
agriculturally more prosperous states or to urban areas with all the
attendant socio-health-sanitational problems; people having to work
with no leisure; men women and children forced to work in unhealthy
and hazardous environment and so on. While these problems are
receiving the attention of government at different levels, the fact
remains that availability and consumption of at least staple diets and
through them at least energy, appears quite satisfactory at this
juncture. Unfortunately such an optimistic picture is not available when
one looks at the nutritional well being of all the households. A
nutritionally balanced diet is still a far cry for millions of poor families,
their present income levels are too low to register their demands on
agricultural sector and induce that sector, which still has tremendous
untapped potential, produce all in food stuffs required. The policy
options that emerge, very briefly could be:
 - Rapid economic growth with steep rise in per capita incomes,
backed by effective redistributive policies;
- A second green revolution in crops other than rice & wheat and
in areas other than present ones;
- Maintaining and further increasing the tempo in growth of
horticulture, animal husbandry and fisheries sectors.
- Special programmes for development of agro and fruit
processing industries especially in States/areas with
concentration of poverty;
- Technical education and development of human resources.
- Sharply focused and people-led and implemented employment
generation and asset building programmes in rural areas;
- Legislation to safeguard interests of agricultural workers who
form the hard core of poor in rural areas;
- Targeting of public distribution system to provide an effective
safety net, only for identified poor households;
- Integration of nutrition programme with health and education;
- Higher investment on health care, especially maternal and child
care as also on elementary education;
- Better utilisation of existing health and educational facilities
through awareness development programmes;
- Sanitation and environmental improvement, essentially through
people's own efforts;
- Expansion of training and extension in nutrition to achieve
optimum use of available and easily producible food stuffs;
- Finally, and the most important, an effective population control
programme.
India appears on the threshold, ready to move on to total food and
nutrition security for all. First phase of battle against raw hunger is
more or less won. The battle ahead is still more difficult; it must be
waged with great resolve on the part of everybody concerned,
including of course, the affected people themselves.