75 yrs of freedom: Can’t have people starving

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court asked the Central government to see to it that no one goes to sleep on an empty stomach and food grains allotted under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) reach the last man in the country. The court’s observation came during a hearing on a PIL related to the plight of migrant workers during the Covid pandemic and the resultant lockdowns when the country witnessed untold hardship, loss of jobs on an unprecedented scale and the pushing of lakhs of people into penury.

The court has also asked for a fresh chart on the number of migrant and unorganised workers. We are no doubt a nation of stark contrasts; India today has some of the richest in the world from the Hindujas to Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani with the list of billionaires of Indian origin continuously growing which should make our hearts swell with pride. But the divide between the super rich and the poor seems to be growing with no conscious effort to ensure an equitable distribution of the fruits of development.

The hunger statistics for the nation are enough to prove that far from enjoying a comfortable existence with three meals a day, as high as 15 per cent of the population still languish with a dietary energy consumption below the minimum level. This refers to the percentage of the population whose food intake is insufficient to meet dietary energy requirements continuously. Migrants and workers in the unorganised sector are the worst hit because of lopsided economic policies;

The number of migrant workers is increasing with Maharashtra and the country’s commercial capital, Mumbai seeing the largest inflow of such workers. Some reports put the number of migrants at 40 crore with a good proportion from states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. If people are going hungry in India, there is nothing more disappointing as the country’s granaries are overflowing with buffer food stocks at comfortable levels.

And what’s shocking is that this is happening in a country which has a well-networked Public Distribution System (PDS) which could serve as a bulwark against any form of food insecurity or malnourishment due to insufficient consumption of food grains. Also, crude attempts to weed out ration cards in the name of bogus and duplicate cards and Aadhaar seeding, have left many of the worst affected by the pandemic at the doors of starvation.

There have been announcements on the ‘One nation one ration card’ to ensure portable PDS benefits but the implementation is yet to happen on a nationwide scale. Seventy five years after Independence, if Indians are still waiting for freedom from the pangs of hunger, it reflects very poorly on the policy formulations of those who have been in power. The ‘last Indian’ and basic needs should have been top priorities of the governments both at the Centre and in the states all along and whether this has happened is a debatable subject.

Wealth accumulation is something every Indian can be proud of but even while framing policies conducive for pushing up industrial production, service delivery efficiency and GDP figures, governments are also expected to keep an eye on those at the bottom rung of the economy-those who do not have a roof over their heads or a job to keep hunger at bay and who live from day to day in the hope that better times will ultimately prevail.

For them, the government is the only source of succour amid an ever increasing trend of privatisation, job loss, inflationary trends, rural distress and the grim global scenario. The top court’s direction to the government, therefore has not come a day too early