MALNUTRITION: India & "Below the Poverty Line"

At a time when its economy is poised to grow at 8.5 per cent this financial year, and with its granaries overflowing and food stockpiles rotting in the open, India is finding it difficult to feed its hungry millions. Given the unresolved debate over the percentage of population living in hunger, and all out efforts to reduce the burgeoning food subsidy, feeding India remains a distant dream.
In early 2009, when President Pratibha Patil reiterated her government's resolve to bring in a National Food Security Act in a bid to provide every hungry family with 25 kg of foodgrains priced at Rs 3 a kg (or roughly 7.5 US cents), I was very hopeful. After all, at least 63 years after Independence the government finally takes a vow to feed the hungry. But somewhere at the back of my mind, I was skeptical and kept my fingers crossed, knowing that even the international community had failed to keep its promise of pulling out half the world's hungry by the year 2015. On the contrary, the world's population living in hunger is actually growing.
Despite the impressive economic growth, India is home to the world's largest population of hungry and malnourished, With over 250 million people living in hunger and with 47 per cent children below the age of 5 severely malnourished, I don't know how can the world eulogize its growth trajectory when India's record on hunger remains worse than that of nearly 25 sub-Saharan African countries. What is lesser known is that all these years India had deliberately kept the number of hungry low by drawing a fictitious poverty line, which i think is amongst the world's most stringent. No wonder, India is ranked 66th among 88 vulnerable countries in the Global Hunger Index prepared by the International Food Policy Research institute,
If you earn more than Rs 12 (or 33 US Cents) a day in the rural areas, you are above the poverty line. This is much less than what an average Indian family would incur on a pet dog.
For over a year now, numerous permutation and combinations have been drawn and redrawn on the redefining 'below the poverty line' (BPL) population. The Planning Commission first accepted to go by the existing poverty line, which keeps almost 27 per cent of the population in the BPL category. An empowered Group of Ministers designated to prepare the contours of the proposed National Food Security Act had actually endorsed the recommendation. It also suggested lowering of the food entitlement, from the existing 35 kgs per family, to 25 kg, thereby substantially reducing the food subsidy outgo.
To me, this is nothing but an opportunity lost. After all, if the objective is to merely redefine the poverty line, and provide a low food ration entitlement to the needy, it looks to be simply an effort to revamp the existing public distribution system (PDS), which for all practical purposes has failed to deliver food to those who are in dire need. Let us not forget, the abysmally low ranking of India in the Global Hunger Index is despite the PDS, which is supposed to act as a safety net for the vulnerable sections of the society. It caters to 180.4 million families (including 115.2 million 'above the poverty line' families)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/devinder-sharma/feeding-india-is-becoming_b_557522.html