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Right to food campaign kickstarts in India as gov’t set to end Covid-19 rations despite widespread hunger
A series of campaign actions has kickstarted today, November 22, in India as the government ends this month its food security welfare scheme for its poorest citizens affected by Covid-19.
Fr. Irudaya Jothi, S.J., a well-known activist-priest in India and convenor of the Right to Food & Work Campaign, West Bengal, said it would be shameful for the government to discontinue rationing under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) when the country has plenty of free food to distribute to the poor, who continue to suffer from widespread hunger amid the pandemic.
‘’Despite godowns (warehouses) overflowing with food grain stocks of 15,000 11 lakh metric tons, the central government is not ready to provide free rations to the needy. This is a shame,‘’ said Jothi as he announced last November 18, the launch of the Nov. 22 national day of action to demand the Modi administration to extend to at least a year the food rationing under the PMGKAY and universalize the country’s public distribution system (PDS).
The PMGKAY was started by the Indian government in April 2020 to address food shortages in the country that were worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic. It aims to feed India’s poorest citizens holding ration cards by providing five kilograms of rice or wheat per person and one kg. of dal per household.
Last June, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the PMGKAY would only be until November of this year.
Universalize the PDS
India’s right to food activists are also demanding their government to universalize the PDS. Many food-insecure people are being left out of the scheme because only ration card holders benefit from food and non-food items at subsidized rates.
Earlier, Right to Food Campaign, India (RTFC) explained that according to India’s National Food Security Act (NFSA) of 2013, an average of 67 percent of the population would be covered with these cards.
However, only 60 percent of residents have ration cards as the government’s population estimates are still based on 2011 data, according to RTFC.
‘’The government has not accounted for the population increase since then. Further, as has been the experience of targeting in welfare schemes, there continue to be exclusion errors...‘’ said the RTFC, an informal network of individuals and organizations committed to the realization of the right to food in India and a member of the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition.
‘’This is especially true after the roll out of NFSA in urban areas where the eligibility criteria for a ration card are not clearly defined and there exists a large (floating) population without the necessary documents for residence verification,‘’ it added.
Restore food distribution
Also, right to food activists in West Bengal, India’s fourth most populous state, are demanding their government to restore the distribution of food to residents holding RKSY (Rajya Khadya Suraksha Yojana)-2 ration cards, or those who used to get five kg. of free rice.
Activists are likewise asking the government to provide each citizen 14 kg. of food grains, 1.5 kg. of pulses, and 800 milliliters of edible oil per month. They said the food quantities were based on the guidelines from the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Nutrition.
The Right to Food & Work Campaign, West Bengal and the National Right to Food Campaign will lead other activities.
Among these are sending letters to various government offices of West Bengal to urge them to recognize the people's right to food and a webinar on Nov. 23 that will discuss threats to food security and democracy in relation to the Labour Code, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, and the three measures recently approved by the legislature, namely the Farmer's Produce Trade and Commerce Bill 2020, Farmers Agreement Bill 2020, and Essential Commodities Amendment Bill 2020.
The Right to Food & Work Campaign, West Bengal will likewise participate in the Central Trade Unions of India's November 26 general strike.
Pervasive hunger continues despite 7-year-old food security law
Poverty-induced hunger and malnutrition remain pervasive in India despite the seven-year-old NFSA and the state’s supposed obligation to ensure its citizens’ right to nutritious food as a universally declared human right.
Basing its estimates on 2017 to 2019 data, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations noted in its The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2020 report that 189.2 million Indians, comprising 14 percent of the country’s total population, were undernourished.
In the 2020 Global Hunger Index, India was ranked 94 of the 107 countries and placed in the ‘’serious’’ hunger category.
Meanwhile, in the 2018 Global Nutrition Report, India was singled out for being the country with the biggest number of stunted children totaling 46.6 million.
The report noted that India was facing a major malnutrition crisis for having nearly a third of the world’s burden for stunting or low height for weight attributed to long-term insufficient nutrient intake and frequent infections.
Also, India had the world’s highest number of deaths among children under five years old totaling 8,82,000, based on 2018 estimates by the Unicef.