Poverty and Food Consumption in Madhya Pradesh

Estimation of poverty

OR

Preservative for Chronic Hunger

Sachin Kumar Jain

It can't be termed development if the largest section of the society is bound to spend 55 to 70 percent of their gross income just to arrange their daily requirement of food. The farce of poverty identification is a big challenge before the goal of elimination of chronic hunger. Actually, according to Planning Commission’s latest estimation, poverty in India is reducing. Looking to the ground level conditions, it seems that they have a mandate to make it possible and it is being achieved by putting people in statistical formulas. It is said that the URP-Consumption distribution data of the 61st Round yields a poverty ration of 28.3 percent in the rural areas, 25.7% in the urban areas and 27.5% for the country as a whole in 2004-05. In Madhya Pradesh, a population of 249.68 lac (38.3%) is bound to go to bed Hungry, as they are poor and marginalized. The Poverty line (implicit) at all-India level is worked out from the expenditure class–wise distribution of persons (based on URP consumption, that is, consumption data collected from 30-days recall period for all items) and the poverty ratio at all-India level. Actually during the poverty estimation, on the one hand, locally available items from forest or agriculture retained for consumption by farmers or Tribals are also valued at prevailing prices, and added to expenditure on non-food items to give the total monthly per capita expenditure. While, on the other hand, the cost of items and services (dwellings or Health or Education) are counted at the lowest price without considering the present state of inflation.

In fact, the people at large should have enough income or they should have rights over natural resources. Both these factors have been neglected by the government of Madhya Pradesh and what ever has been done, the performance is very poor.. There have been no land reforms in Madhya Pradesh since long, while land reforms are vital for an agrarian society. It is a known fact that land reforms in Kerala have changed the life of the people considerably. In fact southern states have been progressive in providing social security to the marginalized sections with their positive political will. One should know that olds age destitute can go to school and get mid day meal with dignity in Tamilnadu. These are the welfare schemes which are not just meant for getting election mileage.

The Planning Commission estimates that in Madhya Pradesh, a family spending Rs 327.78 per person per month in rural settlement will be considered as poor. In Urban settlement, the expenditure level is Rs 570.15 per person per month. In other words, it means, a person spending anything more then Rs 9 every day in a village or Rs 19 in any kind of urban area, will not be considered as poor and will be out of poverty elimination programs. At all-India level, the poverty line represents the expenditure level of Rs. 356.30 in rural areas and Rs. 538.60 in urban area per person per month. No person can survive at this level of expenditure at all. This is basically a Starvation Line, rather then Poverty line. The recent NSS 63rd round survey clearly shows that the biggest part of the total expenditure goes for food arrangements and other aspects, like health, education and entertainment, have been given no value in poverty definition.

Now it may not be a coincidence that Madhya Pradesh has the lowest and continuously declining food consumption, with highest malnutrition, highest infant mortality and lowest life expectancy of 57.7 years, much lower then Kerala’s 73.9 Years. It is just not merely an issue relating to non-availability of institutional health services, these conditions shows the insecurity and invisibility of poverty within the State frame-work and it’s efforts too. It also reflects that avoidance of fundamental issues of exclusion, neglect of community knowledge, threat to agriculture, unlimited exploitation of natural resources for revenue generation and colonial style of addressing development, has pushed the larger society on margins and a fewer ones have become the center in the politics of development.

As far as policies are concerned, there seems only a dark tunnel with assurance of no light even at its tail end! The State has failed in introducing any such policy to reduce the structural imbalances in agriculture and improve purchasing power of the people through sustained means of livelihood. This is nothing but a structural imbalance where you have more population (67%) contributing less (18%) in a gross domestic product. Where are the efforts to reduce this phenomenon? It may be an appropriate analysis that in present development sphere, human and natural resources are considered essential for development, but the concept of exclusion and capability deprivation has been put aside in policy spheres. That is why no change is discerned in the situation and the cycle of poverty moves on. We may expect some qualitative changes after the genuine implementation of Forest Rights Act, meant to hand over the rights on the resources to around 4 lac tribal and other forest dwelling families.
* Writer is a development journalist