A bullet Train To Hunger

Context: The pandemic has highlighted the importance of expanding social security nets.

Background: The experience for the poor is a kind of syndemic: a juxtaposition of the healthcare crisis due to the pandemic and the daily precarity of having to deal with hunger and uncertainty about livelihoods.

Assessing the impact of pandemic: The rural-urban divide can be witnessed from the following data:

• According to the report - State of Working India Report 2021 (Azim Premji University) -
  • Half of formal salaried workers moved into informal work between 2019 and 2020.
  • Considering the national minimum wage threshold of Rs.375 per day (Anoop Satpathy Committee), 23 crore individuals have been pushed below minimal earnings.
  • Poverty rates in rural have increased by 15 percentage points (pp) and by 20 pp in urban.
• Surveys conducted under ‘Hunger Watch’ (HW): Differential impact, biased against urban poor- as urban respondents were 15 pp worse off compared to rural counterparts.
  • Income loss: Incomes reduced by half/quarter for more than half urban respondents while it was a little over one-third for rural respondents.
  • No income even months post lockdown: In October, in rural areas, 26% had no income, while it was 30% in urban areas.
  • Nutritional loss: Only one in five rural respondents had nutritional quality of food “more or less same” in October compared to pre-pandemic levels; it was doubly worse for urban respondents.
  • Expressions of poverty:
    • Nearly two-thirds of urban respondents had to skip a meal while it was lower (41%) for rural.
    • 54% in urban areas had to borrow money for food, which was 16% lower for rural respondents.
  • Impact across demographic lines: 60% Muslims, 51% Dalits, 58% older persons without caregivers and 56% single women-headed households went to bed without a meal at least once.
• Issues with present social security laws: The wider coverage of social security and a promise for employment in rural areas have perhaps cushioned the blow to some extent compared to urban areas.
  • National Food Security Act (NFSA):
    • Exclusion errors: Due to identification errors and old population estimates. Moreover, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana was also restricted to the beneficiaries of NFSA.
    • Discontinuation of Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY): In November, despite the fact that it provides an additional entitlement of 5 kg of foodgrains per individual and 1 kg of pulses per household for free to the poorest of the poor.
    • Urban bias: 75% rural population and 50% urban population are entitled to 5 kg of food grains each month at a subsidised price, and a higher proportion of respondents in rural areas (56%) had NFSA cards compared to urban areas (27%), and 36% in urban areas did not have any ration cards compared to 13% in rural areas.
  • Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA): 47% increase in person-days of work under MGNREGA in 2020-21 compared to 2019-20, and a record 72 lakh households completed 100 days of work in one year.

Way forward

• Universalise and diversify PDS entitlements: PDS entitlements are basic survival kits and fall far short of minimal nutritional requirements for a healthy society.
  • Leverage food grain stocks in Food Corporation of India warehouses: Over 100 million tonnes of food grain stocks as of May 1, 2021.
• Rework MGNREGA: Increase entitlements to 200 days per household, initiate consultations for an urban employment programme and offer a wage compensation of Rs7,000 per poor households.