India’s Challenges of Nutritional Security

Nutrition security = Food security + all essential nutrients with sufficient quality to all the population in all the years.

India’s Status of Nutrition Security

There are 19.5 crore undernourished people in India out of which 47 million children or 40 % are child population; not meeting human potential and facing problems such as:

  • Stunting,
  • Diminishing learning consequences,
  • Poor academic performance,
  • Poor immune system,
  • Reduced earnings performance,
  • Overweight or obesity in the child population,
  • It also increases the communicable diseases, etc.

Challenges

We have obtained food sufficiency in food production but new problems in food production are emerged such as:

  • Climate change is reducing the farm productivity.
  • Slowing agriculture growth as compared to population growth.
  • Land degradation due to overuse of chemical fertilizers.
  • Desertification is increasing in India.

Government Initiatives

For Food Availability

  • Rashtriya Kishan Vikash Yojna
  • Green Revolution
  • White Revolution
  • FCI (Food Corporation of India)
  • Per Drop More Crop
  • National Food Security Mission

For Accessibility

  • PDS system
  • E-market /E-NAM place
  • Mid-day meal scheme
  • Aganwadi system for pregnant and lactating mothers

For Affordability

  • Doubling farm income by 2022.
  • Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. (MGNREGA)
  • National Rural Livelihood Program

Nutrition Security

  • Fortification and diversification of food are needed in order to provide nutritional security.
  • FSSAI operationalized the Food Safety and Standards (Fortification of Foods) Regulations, 2016 for fortifying staples namely Wheat Flour and Rice (with Iron, Vitamin B12 and Folic Acid), Milk and Edible Oil (with Vitamins A and D) and Double Fortified Salt (with Iodine and Iron) to reduce the high burden of micronutrient malnutrition in India.

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