Food and Nutrition Security Program

The importance of optimal nutrition for health and human development is well recognized. The country adopted multi-sectoral, multi-pronged strategy to combat these problems and to improve the nutritional status of the population. Article 47 of the Constitution of India states that “the State shall regard raising the level of nutrition and standard of living of its people and improvement in public health among its primary duties”. Successive Five-Year Plans laid down the policies and strategies for achieving these goals. Over the last three decades there has been substantial reduction in severe grades of under nutrition; however reduction in mild and moderate under nutrition and micronutrient deficiencies have been very slow.

Currently the Major nutrition-related public health problems are:

- Chronic energy deficiency and under nutrition

- Micro-nutrient deficiencies

- Anemia due to iron and foliate deficiency

- Vitamin A deficiency

- Iodine Deficiency Disorders

- Chronic energy excess and obesity

2. Planning Commission

- Draws up the five year plans defining the policies and strategies for tackling these problems

- Allocates funds to the concerned sectors in five year and annual plans for the concerned departments in the center and the states

- Promotes convergence of services between the concerned Departments and at the village level, through increasing involvement of the Panchayati Raj Institutions.

Initiatives in the Tenth Plan

3. During the Tenth Plan there will be focused and comprehensive interventions aimed at improving the nutritional and health status of the individuals. Tenth Plan envisages that there will be a paradigm shift from:

- household food security and freedom from hunger to nutrition security for the family and the individual;

- untargeted food supplementation to screening of all the persons from

Initiatives to improve nutritional status of the population during the last five decades include:

- Increasing food production- building buffer stocks

- Improving food distribution- building up the Public Distribution System (PDS)

- Improving household food security through improving purchasing power

• Food for work programme
• Direct or indirect food subsidy
•  Food supplementation to address special needs of the vulnerable groups-Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), Mid-Day Meals
•  Nutrition education especially through Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) and ICDS
•  Efforts of the health sector to tackle Adverse health consequences of under nutrition
• Adverse effects of infection and unwanted fertility on the nutritional status.
• Micronutrient deficiencies and their health consequences 
• Vulnerable groups, identification of those with various grades of under-nutrition and appropriate management; 
•  lack of focused interventions on the prevention of over-nutrition to the promotion of appropriate lifestyles and dietary intakes for the prevention and management of over nutrition and obesity.

4. Interventions will be initiated to achieve, Adequate availability of foodstuffs by:

§         Ensuring production of cereals, pulses and seasonal vegetables to meet the nutritional needs;

§         Making them available throughout the year at affordable cost through reduction in post harvest losses and appropriate processing;

§         More cost-effective and efficient targeting of the PDS to address macro and micronutrient deficiencies (this may include providing coarse grains, pulses and iodised/ double fortified salt to below poverty line (BPL) families through he targeted PDS (TPDS)

§         Improving people’s purchasing power through appropriate programmes including food for work schemes.

Prevention of under-nutrition through nutrition education aimed at:

• Ensuring appropriate infant feeding practices (universal colostrums feeding, exclusive breast feeding up to six months, introduction of semisolids at six months);
• Promoting appropriate intra-family distribution of food based on requirements; dietary diversification to meet the nutritional needs of the family

Operationalisation of universal screening of all pregnant women, infants, preschool and school children for under-nutrition.

Operationalisation of nutrition interventions for the management of under-nutrition

through:

• Targeted food supplementation and health care for those with under-nutrition;
• Effective monitoring of these individuals and their families
• Utilization of the panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) for effective inter-sectoral coordination and convergence of services and improving community participation in planning and monitoring of the ongoing interventions.
• Prevention, early detection and appropriate management of micronutrient deficiencies and associated health hazards through
• Nutrition education to promote dietary diversification to achieve a balanced intake of all micronutrients;
• Universal access to iodised/double fortified salt;
• Early detection of micronutrient deficiencies through screening of all children with severe under-nutrition, pregnant women and school children;
• Timely treatment of micronutrient deficiencies.

1. Promotion of appropriate dietary intake and lifestyles for the prevention and management of obesity and diet-related chronic diseases.
2. Nutrition monitoring and surveillance to enable the country to track changes in the nutritional and health status of the population to ensure that:
• The existing opportunities for improving nutritional status are fully utilized; and
• Emerging problems are identified early and corrected expeditiously.

5. Poverty is one of the major causes of low dietary intake, which in turn results in under nutrition. In view of the fact that income is a major determinant of dietary intake, especially among the lowest income group population, India has defined poverty line as the income necessary to purchase basket of foodstuffs to meet the energy requirement (2200 kcal per day in urban and 2400 kcal per day in rural) of the population. Over years there has been a substantial improvement in per capita incomeand reduction in the proportion ofpopulation living below poverty line. However, available data suggest that therehas not been a commensurateimprovement either in dietary intake

6. NSSO surveys provide time-series data of expenditure on food and non-food items classified by different income groups, residence (rural & urban) and state. Taking into account the cost of food in the corresponding year, NSSO computes and reports house hold level of consumption of different food items. Data from NSSO survey from 1972 to 2000 shows that in the lowest and middle-income groups, the expenditure on cereal had declined. However, in the highest income group expenditure on cereals forms relatively low proportion of total expenditure and the proportion have remained essentially unaltered over the last three decades.

7.   Because over the years there has been a reduction in relative cost of cereals especial that supplied through the Public Distribution System (PDS). Data on time trends in cereal intake from NNMB surveys (Figure-4) confirm that there has been a reduction in the % of individuals consuming less than 70% of RDI for cereals. There has been a small decline in the household consumption of cereals in middle-income groups. The reported per capita “consumption” of cereals in high-income households in rural area was 26.2Kg(About1Kg/day). This has declined to 14.4Kg in 1999-2000.Data from diet surveys conducted by NNMB have shown that average dietary intake of cereals even in the highest income group never exceeded400g/day. It would therefore appear that among highest income group households especially in rural areas there was food sharing with guests, relatives and servants. The change in life style over the last two decades may perhaps account for the steep reduction in “consumption” of cereals in high-income group households.

8. There has been a change in the type of cereals consumed among the lowest income group. With the availability of wheat and rice through PDS the poorer segments of population have changed over to rice and wheat as staple cereals. Coarse cereals such as bajra, ragi that is rich in micronutrient and minerals are nolonger being consumed in substantial quantity by the lowest income group (Figure-5). The Tenth plan envisages that locally produced and procured coarse grains should be made available throughTPDS at subsidized rates. This may substantially bring down subsidy cost without any reduction in the calories provided. This will also improve targeting, as only the most needy are likely to buy these coarse grains.

URL - http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/9th/vol2/v2c2-3.htm