New Delhi: The Central government expressed its shock over the dip in India’s rank on the Global Hunger Index, saying that the Food and Agricultural Organisation used ‘unscientific methodology’ for the study. India had slipped to 101st position in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2021, of 116 countries, from its 94th position in 2020. The country is now behind its neighbours Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal in the index.
‘It is shocking to find that the Global Hunger Report 2021 has lowered the rank of India, on the basis of FAO estimate on proportion of undernourished population. It is found to be devoid of ground reality and facts, and suffers from serious methodological issues. The publishing agencies of the Global Hunger Report, Concern Worldwide and Welt Hungerhilfe, have not done their due diligence before releasing the report’, The Women and Child Development Ministry slammed the report, in its statement.
‘They have based their assessment on the results of a ‘four question’ opinion poll, which was conducted telephonically by Gallup. There is no scientific methodology to measure undernourishment like availability of food grains per capita during the period. The scientific measurement of undernourishment would require measurement of weight and height, whereas the methodology involved here is based on Gallup poll based on pure telephonic estimate of the population. The representativeness of even this opinion poll is doubtful for India and other countries’, it added.
The ministry added that the report completely disregards the government’s massive effort to ensure food security to the entire population during the Covid-19 period, adding that the opinion poll does not have a single question on whether the respondent was provided any food support from the government or other sources. The ministry also noted with surprise that the other four countries of this region, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, have not been affected at all by the pandemic prompted loss of job/business and reduction in level of income. The statement also added that these countries were slightly able to improve their position on the indicator proportion of undernourished population by 4.3 per cent, 3.3 per cent, 1.3 per cent and 0.8 per cent points respectively, during the period 2018-20 over 2017-19.
According to the FAO report The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021?, India’s position on the first indicator, child mortality, has improved in 2021, compared with 2020. Position on two indicators, on child wasting and child stunting, has remained unchanged in 2021 compared with 2020, the ministry added.
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