The Indian government on October 15 rubbished the Global Hunger Report 2022 saying it has an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues.
“Misinformation seems to be the hallmark of the annually released Global Hunger Index,” read a statement released by the Indian government after Global Hunger Report 2022 placed India on 107, below neighbouring countries Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
“The index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues. Three out of the four indicators used for the calculation of the index are related to the health of Children and cannot be representative of the entire population. The fourth and most important indicator estimate of the Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3000,” the statement further added.
The statement also said that the Global Hunger Index Report is not only disconnected from reality but has also deliberately ignored efforts undertaken by the Government to ensure food Security for the population, especially during the Covid Pandemic.
“Taking a one-dimensional view, the report lowers India’s rank based on the estimate of the Proportion of the Undernourished (PoU) population for India at 16.3%. The FAO estimate is based on the “Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)” Survey Module conducted through Gallop World Poll, which is an “opinion poll” based on “8 questions” with a sample size of ‘3000 respondents’,” the statement said.
The government said the data used to arrive at the rating drawn from a narrow sample for a country of India’s size and through dubious methods is not only wrong & unethical, but it also reeks of obvious bias. It also accused the Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, the publishing agencies of the Global Hunger Report, of not having done their due diligence before releasing the report.
The central government highlighted the prejudice and erroneous method used by the agency, pointing out how irrelevant, and questions not searching for factual responses were used in the survey to arrive at the Hunger Index.
“The per capita dietary energy supply in India, as estimated by FAO from the Food Balance Sheets, has been increasing year-on-year owing to enhanced production of major agricultural commodities in the country over the years and there is absolutely no reason why the country’s undernourishment levels should increase,” the statement said.
Besides, the centre also listed down measures it had undertaken to ensure food security for its close to 1.4 billion population.
“Government is running the largest food security programme in the world. In the wake of economic disruptions caused by the unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19 in the country, the Government in March 2020 announced the distribution of additional free-of-cost foodgrains (Rice/Wheat) to about 80 Crore National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries at the scale of 5 Kg per person per month under the PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PM-GKAY), over and above the regular monthly NFSA foodgrains i.e., regular entitlements of their ration cards,” the centre enlisted while rejecting the Global Hunger Index Report.
It further highlighted the efforts the government took to help ensure food security during COVID-19. “So far, under the PM-GKAY scheme, the Government allocated a total of almost 1121 Lakh MT foodgrains to the States/UTs equivalent to about Rs. 3.91 Lakh Crore in food subsidy. The scheme has been extended till December 2022. The distribution has been done through State Governments, who on their own further supplemented the efforts of Central Government by providing pulses, edible oils and condiments etc to the beneficiaries,” the statement said.
Under Anganwadi Services, supplementary nutrition was provided to approximately 7.71 crore children up to the age of 6 years and to 1.78 crore pregnant women and lactating mothers. 5.3 Million Metric Tonnes of Foodgrains (comprising 2.5 Million Metric Tonnes of Wheat, 1.1 Million Metric Tonnes of Rice, 1.6 Million Metric Tonnes of Fortified Rice and 12,037 Metric Tonnes of Jowar and Bajra) were supplied.
Under the Pradhan Mantri Matri Vandana Yojna, more than 1.5 Crore registered women were provided Rs 5000/- on the birth of their first child for wage support and nutritious food during pregnancy and post-delivery period.
“The three other indicators apart from PoU, included in Global Hunger Index relate primarily to children viz. Stunting, Wasting and Under 5 mortality. These indicators are outcomes of complex interactions of various other factors like drinking water, sanitation, genetics, environment and utilisation of food intake apart from hunger, which is taken as the causative/outcome factor for stunting and wasting in the GHI. Calculating hunger based on main indicators relating to health indicators of children is neither scientific nor rational,” the statement concluded.