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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

What we need is not a food security Bill but a hunger elimination Act -Arvind Virmani
-The Times of India


In the decade or so that i was at the Planning Commission, i always had advisory responsibility for the food ministry/public distribution system, among other issues of development policy. It did not take very long to find out that the fundamental problem with the system was about so-called "leakages" abetted by corruption: One soon learnt that the Food Corporation of India (FCI) was one of the most inefficient and corrupt organisations in government.

At that time, available estimates of leakage plus administrative costs ranged between 40% and 55%. The other problem was of exclusion - some poor people did not have access to ration cards or subsidised food, from which arose horrifying reports of starvation in remote and tribal areas of the country. This led me to propose the introduction of a food credit/debit card using smart card technology, which could be integrated with the food-for-work programme and also have the inbuilt flexibility to change over to an income transfer system if desired.

Instead of dealing with the very difficult political and bureaucratic problems that have stymied genuine reform of the food system, the food security Bill proposes to deal with these problems with "a stroke of the pen". Unfortunately, very little will change, besides providing lucrative new opportunities for bureaucratic and political corruption.

What are the real problems that are still awaiting serious government and NGO attention? In 2004-05, 2% of households suffered from hunger at some point during the year and about 25% of the people were below the poverty line, but as many as 45% of children below the age of three years were malnourished. If we leave philosophy and politics aside, these facts suggest that, first, as hunger affects only 8% of the poor, the food security Bill and anti-poverty programmes are not the best way to reach the hungry, who are dispersed across the country and in tribal and remote areas.

The hungry have to be individually and geographically identified and/or located. Once that is done, it would not cost much to eliminate hunger through direct cash or food transfers, depending on whether there are or are not competitive food markets in the area where they live. Thus, in remote or hilly areas it is probably necessary to supply food. Secondly, malnutrition is a much bigger problem than poverty and the causes are unlikely to be the same, even though there may be some overlap. Anti-poverty measures/programmes are unlikely to solve the malnutrition problem.

Analysis of the state-wise 2004-05 National Sample Survey and the 2005-06 National Family Health Survey data led to the conclusion that the most important cause of malnutrition in India was the abysmal state of `public health` in terms of sanitation, pure drinking water and public knowledge about the importance of cleanliness (a la germs in dirty water, dirt and grime) and nutrition (basic food groups etc).

If this appears surprising, think about the simple act of eating and digesting food and absorbing energy and nutrition from it. A child or an adult sick with diarrhoea or dysentery can eat as much as she wants but will not be able to absorb it effectively. Recent medical research goes further to show that even those children who are living in unsanitary conditions, but do not show any symptoms of gastro-intestinal disease, are infected with germs in their intestines that do not allow them to absorb nutrients from the food they eat.

Cross-country analysis of malnutrition data confirms the conclusions of the India analysis. The quality of public health, as measured by variables such as access to better sanitation and improved water sources, explains much of the cross-country variations in the prevalence of malnutrition and high malnutrition in India relative to other countries with similar levels of per capita income and poverty.

Improvements in environmental sanitation are the clearest and most effective policy-programme tool for the central government to reduce, if not eliminate, the excessively high levels of malnutrition in India. The cross-country data complements the interstate study by showing that female primary education is an important factor in reducing child malnutrition, by helping spread information and knowledge about personal hygiene, sanitation and nutrition.

The food security Bill will have little or no effect on malnutrition, poverty and hunger. Hunger can be eliminated if and only if the government and/or NGOs identify the 40 lakh affected households and ensure that cash or food reaches the principal female (mother) of the household. An `Elimination of Hunger Act` with severe penalties for officials in whose area a hungry family is found, could do this at a small fraction of the cost.

Child malnutrition can be dramatically reduced, if not eliminated, within a decade through a massive "public health" campaign: This would ensure a modern sewerage and sanitation system in every urban, semi-urban and semi-rural area and pure drinking water, septic tanks and lavatories in rural areas.

The writer is president, Chintanlive.org, and a former chief economic adviser.