Prioritise universal access of food grains since those dying of starvation are mainly the marginalised
OPINION Updated: Feb 22, 2018 07:56 Ist
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Swati Narayan
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People queue outside a ration shop in Delhi (File Photo)(Arijit Sen/ HT)
Forty-four-year-old mother, Amir Jahan, epitomised gallantry this Republic Day. There was not a morsel of food at home. So, while the nation celebrated, she quietly borrowed six rotis from a neighbour and distributed them equally among her three daughters, though she hadn’t eaten for four days. That night Amir died of starvation.
In the first month of 2018, there have been four similar deaths across India.
Four years after the enactment of the National Food Security Act, these hunger deaths are nothing short of criminal negligence by duty-bound governments at the Centre and state.
The food law clearly spells out that three of every four rural homes are entitled to subsidised food grains. Alternatively, state governments are obliged to pay every excluded family compensatory ‘food security allowance’. In fact, most of these poorest of the poor families should have automatically been included in the Antyodaya Anna Yojana. But this has not been the case.