Skip to main content

Don't get coerced by Centre-inspired rice fortification plan: Chhattisgarh govt told

By Our Representative
 
Activists of the Right to Food Campaign (RTFC) and the Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) have urged the Chhattisgarh government to abandon its rice fortification interventions. They appealed to the state government that it should not get coerced into distributing fortified rice in the food schemes being run in the state by the Government of India.
“Anaemia is a public health issue, and not a matter of feasibility or logistics of distribution of fortified rice. Health is a state subject, as per India’s Constitution. The state government, given that Chhattisgarh is self-sufficient in paddy production and also has a decentralised procurement system in place, should step out of Government of India’s unscientific and risky policy of iron-fortified rice in public schemes”, said the fact team members.
The report prepared by two fact-finding teams, which consisted of public health practitioners, following their visit to 11 villages of 5 blocks of 4 districts, asserted, “There is really no basis for the large scale scaling up of rice fortification scheme in Chhattisgarh, where the state government is distributing 25% to 45% of all fortified rice being distributed in the entire country in just this one state right now.”
The teams, which met state food minister Amarjeet Bhagat in addition to senior bureaucrats at the state level, medical experts, district level officials and frontline functionaries of different line departments, PDS dealers, a rice miller and other stakeholders, regretted, the pilot study on rice fortification intervention in Kondagaon district has not been completed, nor evaluation done and results put out for public scrutiny.”
The report pointed out, “It is important to note that Chhattisgarh distributes more fortified rice per beneficiary household than in other states (more than 10 kg per individual per month in many cases), and it is not clear if rice fortification standards have been set by FSSAI keeping this in mind.”
“Further”, it noted, “Even the Take Home Ration (THR) distributed in the state is fortified where norms require 50% of the RDA of iron to be met by the fortified THR. Meanwhile, micronutrient supplementation programmes are also going on, along with iron-rich foods being distributed in government schemes. There is no evaluation of potential iron-overdosing from a plethora of interventions.”
“While this would be a matter of concern even in a normal situation, Chhattisgarh also has high disease burden of sickle cell disorders in the state and around 1.5 lakh persons are estimated to be sickle-cell-diseased (which is an extrapolated estimate given that comprehensive screening and diagnosis has not happened)”, the report said.
It added, “While the numbers cannot even be estimated at the population-level due to a lack of any screening programmes as of now, thalassemia is also an issue to contend with. There are also other diseases like malaria and tuberculosis that the state has high prevalence of. In all these conditions, iron-fortified food is contra-indicated.”
The report underlined, “These diseased persons (whose numbers are significant) and their families are already going through enormous hardships in accessing diagnostic and medical-care facilities, and indiscriminate distribution of iron-fortified rice is irresponsible on the part of any government. It is also quite unjust that Adivasi communities are getting subjected in a disproportionately high manner to this risky approach to tackling anaemia.”
The report said, “We found that labelling regulations are being flouted in numerous ways, and in any case, such labelling regimes have no real meaning in the context of undiagnosed and uninformed communities, and when the end consumer buys a product in a loose, unpackaged form.”
It added, “There is only an aggressive promotional campaign from the state government to extoll the virtues of fortified rice at this point of time, without giving a full picture to beneficiaries and without allowing them prior informed choices.”
According to the report, “It is also seen that in Chhattisgarh, the stencilled and labelled gunny sacks are returned back to the procurement agencies and the fortified rice transferred into other bags at the dealer shops which defeats the purpose of labelling.”
It added, “We also discovered that the state government does not seem to have control over the supply chains of fortified rice, and such rice is turning up in districts where it is not ostensibly being distributed. Meanwhile, the state government is incurring significantly higher expenses in the rice fortification programme, under pressure from Union Government to scale up, compared to the budgets required for targeted micronutrient supplementation programmes.”
Stating that all of these factors should be enough for the state government “to immediately stop the rice fortification programme”, the report said, the rice fortification plan comes amidst “some exemplary and unique initiatives of Chhattisgarh government which have the potential to address malnutrition.”
It said, “This includes the Suposhan Abhiyan, a holistic, diversity-laden, food-based intervention. The NGGB and Godhan Nyay Yojana in Chhattisgarh also reflect a ‘One Health’ approach, which is that soil health and nutrition is connected with plant health and nutrition, which in turn is connected with human health and nutrition.”
Further the state government is “yet to scale up its millets mission but this intervention is on the anvil. Poshan Vatikas have also been noted by the fact-finding teams in schools and anganwadis”, it said, adding, “Chhattisgarh is also home to nutrient-rich diverse local foods, including uncultivated forest foods and greens. It has been home to nutritionally superior traditional landraces of paddy and millets.”
Seeking “community-controlled, natural alternatives” the report asked the state government to reject offering “synthetic chemicals in the name of fortified foods in a reductionist, ineffective and potentially risky approach to malnutrition.”
---
Click here for full report

Comments

TRENDING

Junk food push causing severe public health crisis of obesity, diabetes in India: Report

By Rajiv Shah  A new report , “The Junk Push: Rising Consumption of Ultra-processed foods in India- Policy, Politics and Reality”, public health experts, consumers groups, lawyers, youth and patient groups, has called upon the Government of India to check the soaring consumption of High Fat Sugar or Salt (HFSS) foods or ultra-processed foods (UPF), popularly called junk food.

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

Astonishing? Violating its own policy, Barclays 'refinanced' Adani Group's $8 billion bonds

By Rajiv Shah  A new report released by two global NGOs, BankTrack and the Toxic Bonds Network, has claimed to have come up with “a disquieting truth”: that Barclays, a financial heavyweight with a “controversial” track record, is deeply entrenched in a “disturbing” alliance with “the Indian conglomerate and coal miner Adani Group.”

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Modi govt intimidating US citizens critical of abuses in India: NY Christian group to Biden

Counterview Desk  the New York Council of Churches for its release of an open letter calling on the Biden administration to “speak out forcefully” against rising Hindu extremist violence targeting Christians and other minorities in India. In the letter addressed to President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and other major elected officials, the NY Council of Churches expressed "grave concern regarding escalating anti-Christian violence" throughout India, particularly in Manipur, where predominantly Christian Kuki-Zo tribals have faced hundreds of violent attacks on their villages, churches, and homes at the hands of predominantly Hindu Meitei mobs.

Link India's 'deteriorating' religious conditions with trade relations: US policymakers told

By Our Representative  Commissioners on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) raised concerns about the “sophisticated, systematic persecution” of religious minorities by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a hearing on India in Washington DC.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Green revolution "not sustainable", Bt cotton a failure in India: MS Swaminathan

MS Swaminathan Counterview Desk In a recent paper in the journal “Current Science”, distinguished scientist PC Kesaven and his colleague MS Swaminathan, widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution, have argued that Bt insecticidal cotton, widely regarded as the continuation of the Green Revolution, has been a failure in India and has not provided livelihood security for mainly resource-poor, small and marginal farmers. Sharply taking on Green Revolution, the authors say, it has not been sustainable largely because of adverse environmental and social impacts, insisting on the need to move away from the simplistic output-yield paradigm that dominates much thinking. Seeking to address the concerns about local food security and sovereignty as well as on-farm and off-farm social and ecological issues associated with the Green Revolution, they argue in favour of what they call sustainable ‘Evergreen Revolution’, based on a ‘systems approach’ and ‘ecoagriculture’. Pointing ou

Victim of 'hazardous' jobs, Delhi sanitary workers get two thirds of minimum wages

By Sanjeev Kumar*  Recently, the Dalit Adivasi Shakti Adhikar Manch (DASAM) organized a Training of Trainers (ToT) Workshop for sewer workers and waste pickers from all across Delhi NCR. The workshop focused on bringing sanitation workers from different parts of Delhi to train them for organization building and to discuss their issues of minimum wage, contractual labour, regular jobs and social security.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.