Grave Hunger Crisis Stares India’s Most Marginalised: Hunger Watch Report

The report used the Global Food Insecurity Experience Scale (GFIES) – a tool used to measure experience based food insecurity and hunger – developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations to calculate food insecurity. The GFIES consisted of 8 questions such as whether the respondent was unable to eat healthy or nutritious food or whether they had gone a day without eating. 

According to the Hunger Watch, each “yes” was given a score of one and each “no” was given a zero. An overall score ranging between 1 and 3 (out of 8) meant that the household experienced mild food insecurity, a score between 4 and 6 meant they experienced moderate food insecurity, and the score 7 and above meant they experienced severe food insecurity.

60% of those surveyed were worried about food, unable to eat healthy or nutritious food or unable to eat as many food items as they would have liked to, stated the report. 45% of the respondents reported that their household ran out of food in the month preceding the survey. Additionally, over one-third of the respondents felt that the situation would remain the same or get worse in the next three months.

The report used the Global Food Insecurity Experience Scale (GFIES) – a tool used to measure experience based food insecurity and hunger – developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations to measure the levels of  food insecurity. The survey uses indicators such as whether the respondent was unable to eat healthy or nutritious food or whether they had gone a day without eating. 

Muslim households reported higher food insecurity.  87% Muslim households were precarious compared to 77% Hindu households. 

However, Christian households (37%)  were the ones that reported the highest levels of severe food insecurity followed by Muslim (35%) and Hindu (23%) households. 

Among castes, Dalit households (29%) followed by Scheduled Tribe (27%) reported experiencing highest levels of severe food insecurity. 84% Dalit households and 81% general caste households reported experiencing any kind of food insecurity.

The highest proportion of households that reported going to sleep without eating belonged to general castes at 41%, followed by Scheduled Castes (36%), Other Backward Classes (29%), Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (28%), and Scheduled Tribes (25%). 

More urban (87%) than rural households (76%) reported facing any kind of food insecurity. 2 in 5 respondents said that the quality and quantity of their food intake had deteriorated as compared to pre-pandemic times. This was higher for urban households at 56% than rural households at 35%. 

“There have been days when the whole  family had to sleep without eating in the night due to lack of all ration in the household and  the family was unable to afford it. We have not consumed eggs, non-veg or fruits in the last one and half months,” a woman respondent whose identity has been concealed was quoted as saying in the report. 

The hunger situation becomes particularly concerning when the levels of malnutrition among women and children in the country are taken into account.

More than half of Indian children and women are anaemic, as per the latest round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) released in November 2021. The NFHS was conducted before the pandemic. The prevalence of anaemia among children below the age of 5 has risen from 58.6% in NFHS-4 to 67% in NFSH-5 and that among women in the 15-49 years age group has risen from 53% in NFHS-4 to 57% in NFHS-5. At least 17 states and Union Territories have witnessed a significant increase in severe wasting among children under the age of 5 including Ladakh, Lakshadweep, Telangana, Nagaland, and Mizoram, where the numbers have nearly doubled since the last round of NFHS.