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The Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), the economic wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has urged the government to form a policy to encourage use of local solutions to malnutrition among children instead of promoting the use of packaged ready-to-use food in government programmes and projects.
In a letter addressed to Maneka Gandhi, Minister for Women and Child Development, the RSS affiliate flayed the current focus on ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTF) that would “will satisfy the ‘hungry for profits’ food industry and not our children who need real food.”
The letter, signed by Ashwani Mahajan, All India Co-convenor of SJM, said the global push for the use of RUTF to tackle malnutrition was a cause for concern, especially given that local solutions were available, calling the movement a “nexus”.
“We request you to frame a clear policy to guide the States on most sustainable and local solutions, which are indigenous, economical and culturally relevant,” the organisation urged.
Three State governments — Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh (all ruled by the BJP) — have already started using RUTF, as part of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement. SUN, however, is seen to have conflict of interest with several major players from the food industry being involved in its business network, SJM pointed out.
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), chaired by former Managing Director of Britannia, Vinita Bali, heads the SUN Business Network, which includes other players such as Pepsi, Cargill, Nutriset, Britannia, Unilever, Edesia, General Mills, Glaxo SKB, Mars, Indofood, Nutrifood, DSM, Amul, and Valid Nutrition, the letter said.
The organisation further suggested that according to data on treatment of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) in children, there was very little difference in the health benefits of the commercial RUTF and foods augmented at home. “The locally created ready-to- use therapeutic food group was found little better as there was 57 per cent recovery rate as compared to 43 per cent among the commercial RUTF group,” the letter claimed.
SJM also said that adoption of commercial RUTF “is no doubt very expensive and not sustainable,” referring to the ongoing projects in States such as Rajasthan and Maharashtra.
Reportedly, the Maharashtra government has floated a ₹100-crore plan to address malnutrition, under which children would be provided with packaged RUTF three times a day for 72 days to address the nutritional challenge. With each packet costing ₹25, the expense per child comes to ₹5,400 for the duration of the programme.
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