Dip in India's rank in GHI 'shocking', methodology used is 'unscientific': Govt

The Centre said it was shocking that Indias rank was lowered on the Global Hunger Index and it termed the methodology used for rankings unscientificIndia slipped to the 101st position in the Global Hunger Index GHI 2021 of 116 countries from its 2020 position of 94th It is now behind its neighbours Pakistan Bangladesh and Nepal The GHI report prepared jointly by Irish aid agency Concern Worldwide and German organisation Welt Hungerhilfe termed the level of hunger in the country alarmingReacting sharply to the Global Hunger Report 2021 the Women and Child Development Ministry said it is shocking to find that it has lowered the rank of India on the basis of FAO estimate on the proportion of the undernourished population which is found to be devoid of ground reality and facts and suffers from serious methodological issuesThe publishing agencies of the Global Hunger Report Concern Worldwide and Welt Hungerhilfe have not done their due diligence before releasing the report the ministry said in a statement The methodology used by the Food and Agriculture Organization FAO is unscientific the ministry claimedThey have based their assessment on the results of a four question opinion poll which was conducted telephonically by Gallup 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 it saidThe ministry said the report completely disregards the governments massive effort to ensure food security of the entire population during the Covid period verifiable data on which are available The opinion poll does not have a single question on whether the respondent received any food support from the government or other sources The representativeness of even this opinion poll is doubtful for India and other countries it saidThe ministry said it is noted with surprise in the FAO report The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021 that other four countries of this region Afghanistan Bangladesh Nepal and Sri Lanka have not been affected at all by COVID19 pandemic induced loss of jobbusiness and reduction in income levelsIt said that instead the nations have been able to improve their position on the indicator proportion of undernourished population by 43 per cent 33 per cent 13 per cent and 08 per cent points respectively during the period 201820 over 201719The Global Hunger Report 2021 and FAO report have completely ignored the facts available in public domain the WCD Ministry added The ministry also listed efforts taken by it like the implementation of additional nationwide schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojna PMGKAY and the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Scheme ANBSIt said that during 2020 322 crore 322 million metric tons of food grains and during 2021 about 328 crore 328 million metric tons of food grains have been allocated free of cost under the PMGKAY scheme to approximately 80 crore 800 million beneficiaries The ministry said that to prevent disruption in the employment of wageearners getting below Rs 15000 per month in organised sector businesses having less than 100 workers the government deposited 24 per cent of their monthly wages into their PF accounts for three months from April to June 2020MNREGA wages were increased by Rs 20 with effect from April 1 2020 to provide an additional Rs 2000 benefit annually to a worker to benefit approximately 1362 crore 1362 million families it said As per this report Indias position on the first indicator child mortality has improved in 2021 compared with 2020 Position on two indicators ie child wasting and child stunting has remained unchanged in 2021 compared with 2020 the ministry saidAlso ReadIndia slips to 101st rank in Global Hunger Index 2021 behind Pakistan Bangladesh and NepalIn 2020 India was ranked 94th out of 107 countries Now with 116 countries in the fray it has dropped to 101st rank Indias GHI score has also decelerated from 388 in 2000 to the range of 288275 between 2012 and 2021 The GHI score is calculated on four indicators undernourishment child wasting share of children under age of five who are wasted ie who have low weight for their height reflecting acute undernutrition child stunting children under age of five who have low height for their age reflecting chronic undernutrition and child mortality mortality rate of children under age of fiveThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever