Vol. 5 No. 1
Food and nutritional security: how much and for whom?
Author(s): B.K. BERA AND A.K. NANDI
Abstract: The study based on secondary data reveals that in spite of producing huge amount of surplus of total cereals and food grains, per capita per month consumption of total cereals is declining continuously in major states of India during period 1991 and 2001 and a sizeable section of poor people find it difficult to collect square meals everyday and even thousands of people die every year on starvation. Again, percentage of poor people consuming less than 70 percent of the total requirement is higher in both rural and urban areas in comparison to APL persons of major states of India in 1993-94 and this differential calorie intake has further aggravated in 1999-00 in both areas. So, when food grains stock is virtually spilling over on the road, millions of people are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Only universal PDS or targeted PDS is not sufficient to take care of food and nutritional security of BPL persons unless it is coupled with sufficient employment generation programmes to increase the purchasing power of these downtrodden people which will ultimately increase access to food and help the poor to lead a healthy and active life.
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