Hunger what does the Facts Tell

M.K.Ghadoliya

Professor of Economics

NSS 38^th Round in 1983, as well as NSS 50^th Round in (1993-94) and NSS 55^th Round in (1999-2000) had direct questions on Hunger that allow clear answers from the sufferers. The NSS questions on hunger were,

·         Do all members of your households get two square meal/enough food every day?

·         If not, then during which calendar months did you or other members of the household not have enough food every day? The number of months indicated by the household was recorded.

The proportion of households that were hungry during any part of the year by this definition was 15.7 percent in 1983, 4.5 percent in 1993-94, and only 2 per cent in 1999-2000. In terms of individuals assuming that every person in the household was hungry, the estimate that the number of hungry people declined from 15.7 per cent of the total population (101million) in 1983 to 4.4 percent of population (37 million) in 1993-94 and further 2 per cent of the population (18.5) million in 1999-2000. It is useful to look at numbers in relation to poverty because logically the number of hungry people must be a fraction of the poor for any reasonable definition of poverty.

More formally, the line defining the very poor or hungry must logically lie below the poverty line. Thus, the hunger ratio must be lower than the poverty ratio. The ratio of very poor / hungry to the poor may decline, stay constant, or rise, depending on the distribution of consumption in the lower half of the distribution. Whatever is the ratio or the number providing food to all in a country like India is a challenging task.