Status of Hunger Poverty in India

We normally use two indicators for assessing the status of Hunger Poverty.  These two Indicators are:

1.      Malnutrition in children under five years

2.      Malnutrition for overall population (in average intake).

 

In developing countries like India, children and adults are vulnerable to malnutrition because of low dietary intakes, infectious diseases, lack of appropriate care and inequitable distribution of food within the household. Three standard indices of physical growth that describe the nutritional status of children are:

Ø  Height-for-age (stunting);

Ø  Weight-for-height (wasting);

Ø  Weight-for-age (underweight).

 

As per the Third National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3, 2005-06), almost half of children under five years of age (48 percent) were stunted and 43 percent were underweight. The proportion of children who are severely undernourished (more than three standard deviations below the median of the reference population) is also notable — 24 percent according to height-for-age and 16 percent according to weight-for-age. Wasting is also quite a serious problem in India, affecting 20 percent of children under five years of age.

In NFHS-2 (1998-99), the nutritional status of children was measured only for the children under three years of age. The proportion of children under three years of age who are underweight decreased from 43 percent in NFHS-2 to 40 percent in NFHS-3, and the proportion severely underweight decreased from 18 percent to 16 percent. Stunting decreased by a larger margin, from 51 percent to 45 percent. Severe stunting also decreased, from 28 percent to 22 percent. However, the improvement in height-for-age combined with a somewhat slower improvement in weight-for-age actually produced an increase in wasting and severe wasting over time. The decrease in stunting over time was greater in rural areas than urban areas. The prevalence of underweight in children who were underweight decreased slightly more in urban areas than rural areas, but there was very little improvement in the percentage of children who were severely underweight in urban areas.

The national level official poverty lines for the base year (1973-74) were expressed as monthly per capita consumption expenditure of Rupees 49 in rural areas and Rupees 57 in urban areas, which corresponded to a basket of goods and services that satisfy the calorie norms of per capita daily requirement of 2400 kcal in rural areas and 2100 kcal in urban areas, which were considered minimum required dietary energy for healthy living. The cutoff lines have been updated for price rise for subsequent years. However, the new poverty lines thus calculated do not match the minimum dietary energy levels as expressed by the calorie norms. This may be due to the problem with price indices used for the purpose.  Due to this one may say that poverty lines which are officially declared has problem of underestimation. This is revealed from the National Sample Survey (NSS) data of the 61st round (2004-05) for calorie consumption for each expenditure class. At the national official poverty lines (at 2004-05 prices) of Rupees 356 per capita per month for rural areas and Rupees 539 per capita per month for urban areas, the calorie intake works out to be about 1820 kcal for both rural and urban areas, which is much below 2100/2400 kcal norm for healthy living or food security. In fact, it is also revealed from NSS results of the previous quinquennial rounds of consumption expenditure surveys that total calorie consumption of the bottommost quartile of per capita expenditure in rural India has consistently declined since 1987-88, from 1683 kcal in 1987-88 to 1624 kcal in 2004-05. The total of calorie intake of the top quartile of the rural population has similarly declined from 2863 kcal in 1987-88 to 2521 kcal in 2004-05. The proportion of population that has dietary energy consumption below 2100/2400 kcal in India tends to rise since 1987-88 with about 64% below the norm in 1987-88 increasing to 76% in 2004-05.     

 

According to the National Sample Survey data of the 66th round (2009-10), average dietary energy intake per person per day was 2147 Kcal for rural India and 2123 Kcal for urban India. The proportion of households with calorie intake below 2160 Kcal per consumer unit per day (80% of 2700 Kcal, a level used in NSS tabulation for comparisons) was 62% for rural and 63% for urban households in the bottom decile class. The proportion declined progressively with MPCE level. In the next decile class, it was about 42.5% in the rural sector and 45% in the urban sector. The proportion was only about 2.5% for the top 10% of population ranked by MPCE. Due to above mentioned problem of price indices, one may say with more confirmatory manner that poverty lines which are officially declared had been under estimated.

 

Estimates of average calorie intake for India from six quinquennial surveys of consumer expenditure including the 66th round show a decline in average calorie intake between 1972-73 and 2009-10. The overall decline is substantially greater for rural than for urban India, and appears to have been sharper in the period since 1993-94 (50th round), especially in the urban sector. The proportion of households with calorie intake below the level of 2700 Kcal per consumer unit per day has grown more or less steadily since 1993-94: from under 52% in rural India to nearly 62%, and from 57% in urban India to about 63%.