Hunger, India and Me (Indians)

 

                                         Hunger, India, and Me (Indians)

India is 2^nd most populous and one of the youngest country of the world. India has started its social security scheme ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme) in year 1975 on eve of Gandhi Jayanti to reduce malnourishment and from last 42 years scheme is going on in entire country and malnourishment is kept increasing like a horse without “Lagaam”.

In recent released International Hunger index India stood on 100^th Position out of 119 countries in compare to 97^th rank of previous year released data. If we compare ourselves with neighboring countries like Bangaldesh-88^th, Nepal-72^nd, Myanmar-77^th, and China-29^th. So, we could imagine the situation of our country who is trying best to get permanent membership in UN security council and going ahead for Bullet train.

In recent released report by United Nations “State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” says India having around 14.5 Crore people those are not getting food (comes under Hunger category) which is around 14.5% of total population (Census 2011), and one of reports which was released by former Prime Minister that around 50 % of Children comes under malnourished category and UN report says 51.4 women are anemic. So, this raise a big question on our program, policy, and efforts which we made earlier and in present days.

These data are just the mirror image of what we have. We have good program, social security schemes but is their implementation is getting done properly or Rajeev Gandhi statement “only 10 paisa of 1 Rs reaches to the real beneficiary is still existing in same way although existing PM has vision of “Naa Khaunga naa Khane dunga”-neither I will eat nor other will be allowed to eat- quoted in terms of corruption. In this regard even our supreme Court has been used many harassed words for the government and their machineries and food security bills also brought into the parliament, but situation is degrading day by day. From 97^th Rank to 100, might be in future we could more behind of other countries like Pakistan (106^th Current Position).

In last year around Rs.15000 crore was the budget for the implementation of the Food security bill in the country but only Rs.400 crore got released by the Central Government. In this way certainly we are not going to achieve the goals and reduce the hunger. This way we are going the create a huge portion of population which will increase the burden of morbidity on the entire society and it will affect our GDP and happiness index. 

If we are really wanted to contribute and reach on the zero hunger, no malnourishment, no anemic mother, no weak new born child then from today we will have to start to work on this otherwise number of ARABPATIS will keep increasing and that will also lead to increase of hunger among the community. To bring balance we need to focus on both horizon of the society and an honest effort will be required else many more reports will come and go which will reflect our image “jaise Sarkaare to aate jaate rahengi kyu ki vote to hume hi dena hai”