The Global Hunger Index (GHI) has ranked India at 101 out of 116 countries in the category of having a ‘serious’ hunger situation.
The Government has objected to the methodology of the Global Hunger Index stating that it is not based on facts.
How are GHI rankings calculated?
The GHI is a tool that measures and tracks hunger globally as well as by country and is prepared by European NGOs of Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe.
GHI rankings are based on Hunger Index Scores, which are a weighted normalised average of four indicators.
Percentage of undernourished in the population - PoU
Percentage of children under five years who suffer from wasting – CWA (low weight-for-height)
Percentage of children under five years who suffer from stunting – CST (low height-for-age)
Percentage of children who die before the age of five – CM (child mortality)
The respective thresholds for PoU, CWA, CST and CM are 80, 30, 70 and 35, respectively.
The standardized scores take a value from zero to 100, where zero is the lowest level of a given measure of undernourishment and 100 the highest.
The aggregate GHI score is a weighted average of the four indicators where PoU and CM have a weight of one-third and CWA and CST have a weight of one-sixth each.
Looking at each of these indicators separately, India shows a worsening in PoU and CWA in comparison with 2012.
Why has the Indian government objected the methodology?
The assessment has been made based on the results of a opinion poll which was conducted telephonically by Gallup and not based on facts.
All the data used are from official data sources of respective national governments.
In the absence of food consumption data in most countries, this indicator is estimated based on a modelling exercise using available data and therefore subjected to some margin of error.
Most of the criticism of the FAO’s PoU data has been about how it underestimates hunger.
What do the national reports say on India’s status of hunger?
The partial result of the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-20) shows that stunting and wasting indicators have stagnated or declined for most States.
The leaked report of the consumption expenditure survey (2017-18) showed that rural consumption had fallen between 2012-18.
All these data are for the period before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many of the surveys find that over 60% of the respondents are eating less than before the national lockdown in 2020.
Distruption of services such as Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and school mid-day meals would further slowdown in improvement in malnutrition.
What aggravated the situation of hunger?
Provision of additional free foodgrains through the Public Distribution System (PDS) is the only substantial measure taken.
And even this leaves out about 40% of the population and includes only cereals.
Higher food Inflation, especially edible oils ia slso affecting people’s ability to afford healthy diets.
Budget 2021 saw cuts in real terms for schemes such as the ICDS and the mid-day meal.
The distant dream of diverse nutritious diets for all Indians has to be met.
Focus has to be on the big states, where both the population of children and prevalence of undernutrition among them is big.
