The Hindu Business Line : Hunger: The poor man’s terror

While the brutal terrorism of the jihadis hit the headlines in the last week of November, there is another insidious terror spreading across India which nobody seems to notice or do anything about. This is the terror of hunger and its victims are the most vulnerable — the poor.

More than a decade after “reforms” were introduced, the disparity between rural poor and urban India has only widened. Household expenditure surveys, conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation, show that the monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) in rural India has grown negligibly in real terms, while it has grown reasonably in urban India.

Distressing data

Let us start with food, the basic necessity. In 2006-07, rural India as a whole paid Rs 9.82 for a kg of cereals (be it rice, wheat or other staple food items), while urban India paid Rs 12.35. While cereals account for 16.5 per cent (Rs 115) of an average rural individual’s MPCE (Rs 695), it is 34 per cent (Rs 80) of the MPCE for the poorest of the poor (Rs 235) — less than Rs 3 a day!

Now compare this figure with the price of rice in the open market. The lowest priced Palakkadan matta costs about Rs 23 a kg. Atta doesn’t sell at less than Rs 20 a kg. For the poor, the terror of hunger is a creeping death. While the urban population as a whole allocates a smaller proportion of its budget towards cereals compared to its rural counterpart, the lower classes are most vulnerable. As a proportion of the food budget, cereals vary from 42 per cent in the lowest urban MPCE (Rs 335) group to 25 per cent for those with MPCE at Rs 990. The proportion of cereals in the food bill for the urban population as a whole is 23 per cent, 10 percentage points lower than in rural India. Even a State such as Kerala, where those in power trumpet the “People’s Plan”, hunger is insidious.

According to the India State Hunger Index Report, Kerala, along with Punjab, Haryana and Assam, is in the “serious” category of hunger and malnutrition.

During the reform period, from June 1988 to June 2007, the rural poor spent as much as 95 per cent of MPCE on food alone, while the urban individual’s spending fell from 56 per cent to 39 per cent. This clearly shows that the poor today are struggling to buy enough food, notwithstanding the so-called “reforms”.

What can be done?

Currently, India faces the problem of failing agriculture. Policymaking has remained focused on industry and service sectors, especially during the past five years when agriculture logged a paltry 2.3 per cent annual average growth.

Without substantial investments in agriculture, India cannot resolve the current economic crisis. Investments in agriculture do not just mean jacking up the minimum support price, which will inevitably lead to soaring food subsidy bill and, needless to add, escalating storage costs at the FCI godowns. The need is for concerted expansion in cultivated area, especially for food-grains.

The country’s north-eastern part remains the most untapped and, yet, with the best potential. Here, one must learn a lesson or two from China. During an official visit to that country in 2005, I had observed that the government policy was to ensure that on no account the total area under food-grains fell below 69 per cent of the total arable land. Does India have a policy like this?

Unless the policy-makersmove to make amends, it is a safe bet that millions of Indians will starve and die of hunger in the years to come. And that will be a real catastrophe, worse than the jihadis’ bullets.

(The author is an agricultural scientist. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)