Chronic Famishment – C.P. Chandrasekhar

National Sample Survey Organisation’s report on the average calorie intake per person in Indian households points to a much higher incidence of poverty in the country than reflected in estimates of the proportion of the population below the official “poverty” line.

Among the features that sully India’s ”growth story” is the persistence and possible worsening of malnutrition in the country. The subsistence nutritional intake adopted when defining the official poverty line expenditure for 1972-73 was 2400 Kcal per person per day for the adult rural population and 2100 Kcal (henceforth ”calories”) per person per day for the urban population. Needless to say, calorie requirements would vary depending on the build and occupation of individuals and would be substantially different for different age groups. As a standard, the National Institute of Nutrition set the requirement for members of a reference group consisting of Indian males of age 18-29 years with normal body mass index and weight of 60 kg engaged in sedentary work at 2320 calories per day. Thus, the 2300 to 2400 calories per day range provides the benchmark for required calorie intake for a representative Indian.

The National Sample Survey (NSS) Organisation has in periodical consumption expenditure surveys been collecting and putting out figures on the average calorie intake per person in Indian households. It has also provided figures on calorie intake per consumption unit adjusted for age, with a male child in the 4-6 year age group treated as equivalent to 0.54 of a representative consumption unit and a male in the 70-plus age group treated as equivalent to 0.7 of a representative consumption unit. It has recently released such figures for 2009-10 (NSS Report No. 540: Nutritional Intake in India), permitting an assessment of the nutritional situation in the country.

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