As the street prices
of most food items skyrocket far beyond the wholesale price-based
inflation of 7 per cent, India’s fight against malnutrition is taking a
severe hit. Various experts told HT that when you mix rising prices
with steadily falling per capita foodgrain absorption, this amounts to
a double whammy for most Indians’ diet.
Inflation figures don’t really capture how low income households are
coping with double-digit price rise. Department of Consumer Affairs
numbers show that within last year, the retail rate of mustard oil has
climbed by 60 per cent in Lucknow, rice by 44 per cent in Hyderabad,
wheat by 39 per cent in Bhopal, tur by 28 per cent in Aizwal and milk
by 20 per cent in Patna. This means, says Dr Vandana Prasad of Jan
Swasthya Abhiyan, daily wagers have started diluting their ‘dal’ with
more water, cutting down on buying milk for their children and so on.
A forthcoming report shows that in certain communities, prevalence of
malnutrition is already much higher than that suggested by the national
average of 21 per cent.
Mridula Bajaj, who is the executive director of Mobile Creches, says it
is up to 70 per cent among children (under six years) and around 80 per
cent among mothers in the migrant households of Delhi and NCR, 425 of
which were surveyed by her organisation recently.
Dr Utsa Patnaik, professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and
Planning in JNU, points out that the annual foodgrain absorption per
head that rose from 152 kg to 177 kg between 1950-55 and 1989-91, had
already regressed to a 50 years old level ten years later. Consumption
of cereals and pulses has also declined by 13 and 27 per cent between
1990 and 2006.
Some explain this trend in terms of a more diversified food basket,
arguing that the average intake of milk, meat, fruits and vegetables
has been going up. While this may be true in the high income category,
veteran economist K.N. Kabra says it doesn’t explain how India’s per
capita calorie consumption remains amongst the lowest in the world, or
how declining cereals’ consumption has not been accompanied by any
significant increase in the per capita calorie intake.
As for worsening indicators, given that anaemia in India is linked to
poor nutrition, one of the most striking findings of NFHS-3 was an
increase in anaemia among both women and children, with men’s anaemia
levels also remaining unacceptably high.
Deputy director of the National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad Dr
Veena Shatrugna rues that in a country with the highest prevalence of
underweight children in the world, “malnutrition just couldn’t get any
worse. But now it looks like it will”.
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