NEW DELHI: The Global Hunger Index (GHI) does not reflect India’s true picture and should not be taken at face value, the government told the Lok Sabha on Friday.
In a written reply, Women and Child Development Minister Annpurna Devi, said, “The GHI does not reflect India’s true picture as it is a flawed measure of 'Hunger'. It should not be taken at face value as it is neither appropriate nor representative of hunger prevalent in a country.”
She said out of its four indicators, only one indicator - undernourishment - is directly related to hunger.
The two indicators - Stunting and Wasting - are outcomes of complex interactions of various other factors like sanitation, genetics, environment and utilisation of food intake apart from hunger which is taken as the causative/outcome factor for stunting and wasting in the GHI.
“Also, there is hardly any evidence that the fourth indicator, namely, child mortality is an outcome of hunger,” she added.
As per Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2023 Report released by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, India stands at rank 111 out of 125 countries with a score of 28.7, which is an improvement over the GHI 2022 score of 29.1, she added.
Quoting the data of Poshan Tracker for the month of June 2024, she said, around 8.57 crore children under six years were measured. Out of whom 35% were found to be stunted, 17% were found to be underweight and 6% children under five years were found to be wasted.
“The levels of underweight and wasting in children as obtained from Poshan Tracker data are much less than those projected by NFHS 5,” the minister said, adding that the government has accorded high priority to the issue of malnutrition and is implementing several schemes/programmes to address various aspects related to nutrition.