This week in India Loud & Clear, the state of hunger in the country.
You will not like it if I called India a Hunger State.
But what else do you call a country where 15% of its people go to bed hungry every night?
We don’t have a ration card.
We have been trying for 10 years and yet we don’t have one.
My husband is a daily wage labourer.
When he finds work and gets paid, he will buy rice for Rs 50-60 and thats all we have to eat.
If he doesn’t find work then we all go hungry.
The good news is
there is no scarcity of food.
This means that no one needs to die of hunger
and no kid needs to go to bed without food.
The bad news is that we are terrible in managing food.
So bad that it causes starvation.
Another big cause for hunger: distribution of food.
Meaning, unequal distribution.
Food doesn’t reach some people at all.
The British started the Public Distribution System in the 1940s.
And yet, it couldn’t prevent The Great Famine in Bengal that took 3 million lives.
The Public Distribution System is still in place.
Everyone, above and below the poverty line with a ration card
is entitled to subsidized food grains.
The government also runs the Aganwadi program for children and pregnant and lactating women.
It also runs the Mid-Day Meal program for school children.
A historical achievement was in 2013
when the National Food Security Act was adopted.
For the first time access to food was recognized as a right not just a privilege.
But the government schemes to implement food security are plagued by many roadblocks.
Like the names of five members of this family in Jharkhand's Khunti district
are missing in the ration card,
because of which they don't get enough food.
How many members in your family do not have ration card?
Five people.
Who has a ration card?
My father who passed away and my wife have a ration card.
Our family gets only 10 kg rice which is not sufficient for everyone.
How many days do you eat the 10 kg of rice?
We eat for three days.
So, this problem was because names were missing from the ration card.
But often roadblocks continue for those with ration cards too.
Like this family in Chhattisgarh and 300 more people, have not gotten their ration for the last three months
because the shop remains shut.
For the last three months, the ration shop has had no rice to distribute.
At least 200 ration cards are lying in the shop and we cannot access them.
We don’t know if rats are eating our ration.
Our problem is that we have been deprived of subsidised ration,
it has been three months already.
We have no land to cultivate. We will starve without ration.
Shut shops are not the only problem.
Even when they open, often people don't get all they are entitled to.
Video Volunteers conducted a survey in Bihar to understand the situation of ration shops.
The results of this survey shocked us.
So, here's the whole issue in a nutshell : The country has millions of hungry people.
Millions of children are malnurished and stunted.
The government programs to deal with this problem are great, but the ground realities are shocking.
Unless each one of us is shaken out of our slumber,
we will continue to be distracted from real issues like hunger.
It is only awareness that can bring some lasting change and true development.
I hope this message is Loud & Clear in this episode.
Please tell us your ideas of dealing with hunger in the comments section below.
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See you again next week.