1% of Indians slept hungry in 2009-2010: govt survey

With around 46% of Indian children malnourished and around one-third Indians having body mass index of less than 18.5, the government's top research body says that just one percent of people in the country sleep without two square meals a day. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Mar 2, 2013, 20:54:51 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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With around 46% of Indian children malnourished and around one-third Indians having body mass index of less than 18.5, the government's top research body says that just one percent of people in the country sleep without two square meals a day.

The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) in its latest survey on adequacy of food consumption in Indian households says that about 99% in rural India and 99.6% in urban India got adequate food in 2009-10. That year food prices soared because of the preceding drought year.

Contrary to popular perception, the survey says that the percentage of homes getting sufficient meals every day has increased from 94.5% in 1993-94 to 99 % in rural India and from 98% to 99% in urban India.

"The finding is most absurd," said senior faculty at Delhi based Jawaharlal Nehru University Himanshu, who uses only his first name. The reason, according to him, is the way question is framed in the NSSO survey. The question is not about hunger but whether the person feels hungry or not and that is the problem.

As a result, the NSSO has come up with an equally bizarre finding that just 0.2% in rural India and 0% in urban areas don't get two square meals every day.

The survey reports also reports that only West Bengal and Orissa more than four percent of people in rural parts don't get two meals every day in some months of a year. In rural areas of the remaining states, the average percentage is 2.1%.

The 2008 Global Hunger Index (GHI), in which India ranked 66 most food deprived country among 88, had presented a different picture of Indian states.

India ranks 66 out of 88 countries on the 2008 Global Hunger Index (GHI), far behind comparable developing countries as well as smaller, less diverse and resource deprived nations. It said 12 of the 18 states measured, including, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, have been marked as facing an "alarming" situation on hunger.

The index has said that despite being a much ahead of sub-Saharan African countries in economic prowess, India stands lower than many of them when it comes to fighting hunger. The NSSO survey, however, tries to present a rosy picture.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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