Unable to ensure three balanced meals a day for all, the Capital of the world’s fastest growing economy bears the shame of having 47 per cent of its kids (urban poor) diagnosed as malnourished — that’s one out of every two children.
A closer look reveals that a large proportion of the urban population (31.16 per cent) afflicted by poverty, hunger and malnutrition, is actually rural and migrated to urban areas such as Delhi and Gurgaon — referred to as migrants and transitory populations.
According to Dipa Singh of the Right to Food Campaign, a national network working in this area: “With natural calamites hitting several parts of India (droughts, failed crops etc.), a large migrant population come to cities hoping for food security above everything else. This community, without the cover of any security nets – ration cards or aadhar cards or children attached to anganwadi centres — are at higher risk.”
“This population remains invisible to the public eye and are silently suffering for lack of food security. Within this group, the hardest hit are women and children, who are mostly dependent on the male earning member for access to food,” says Ms. Singh.
Activists also say that the scenario today is such that “cheap imitation junk food has percolated down to this already nutrition-deprived society”.
“We have knock-offs of chips and other fast foods, which have no quality control, being given to children and mothers. It’s a health disaster,” adds Ms. Singh.
NGO Child Rights and You (CRY) recently found in a survey that half of the children below six years of age in the slums of New Delhi are underweight.
The children do not fare any better with respect to the other indicators of malnutrition with over 45 per cent found to have stunted growth and 43 per cent found to be wasting (acutely malnourished).
The study, which covered children below six years, noted that children of migrant families dwelling in the most under-privileged sections of the city bore the brunt of urban poverty, especially as the primary caregivers are engaged in informal economic roles.
“Urban hunger has another dangerous fall-out,” says Vimla, who heads the Mahila Pragathi Manch.
“Children as young as six years are addicted to substance abuse. When migration happens to larger cites, like Delhi, the hope is that the family will at least be able to have one full meal a day. When that too becomes a distant dream — caught in the redtapism of identify proof for access to food security — people turn to hazardous replacements. At present, the scenario is such that the figures for hunger in rural areas, and malnourishment in urban jhuggis stand head-to-head. The remedy is to ensure that every person in the city has assured access to quality, cooked food,” she adds.
The World Bank’s ‘India: Nutrition at a Glance’ report states that India does not lack food. Often ineffective distribution systems are citied as the barriers to connecting food to the hungry and malnourished, it suggests.
Kuldip Nar, who runs the Delhi-NCR Foodbank (implemented by the Responsenet Development Services since 2013), says: “Through our project, we want to provide access to nutritious food for vulnerable populations in a sustained manner, contribute towards improving food security in India, and help minimise environmental footprint by accessing surplus and salvage near-expiry date food for disbursement.”
The organisation offers help to the most vulnerable population of society — migrant workers.
“We provide one hot meal to 10,000 people a day, which consists of a typical Indian meal of vegetable, dal and roti/rice. The programme is run purely on donations (dry food items which are cooked),” says Mr. Nar.
The hardest hit are women and children… cheap imitation junk food has percolated down to this already nutrition-deprived society… it’s a health disasterDipa Singh,Right to Food Campaign
Among the urban poor population, one out of every two children are malnourished
