Pronab Sen questions cereal-based food security system

New Delhi, June 5 (UNI) Chief Statistician of India Pronab Sen today questioned the existing method of measurement of poverty using the criteria of caloric intake by a person, saying there was a growing preference for 'high quality' foods like horticultural products and milk.

"There is growing criticism of the measurement of poverty. This is on two counts. The first relates to the obeservation that the present value of poverty lines is insufficient for normative calorie requirement. And second that undimensional calorie norm is inappropriate for nutritional adequacy", Dr Sen said in an interactive session with the Forum of Financial Writers, here.

Dr Sen, who is also Secretary in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, said a growing phenomenon among the general populace is that it was substituting the consumption of cereals with "what it perceives" are high quality foods. This trend runs across all sections, including the poor.

This, Dr Sen, attributed to three factors -- culture, including the impact of advertisements, tradition and aspirations of the people.

Dr Sen said this had dangerous consequences for the health of the people, and the high incidence of obesity in urban areas was reflective of this.

"This points to a disturbing possibility. Cereals may have become an inferior good even for the poor. Do we need to reconsider our cereal based food security system?", Dr Sen asked.

The session with Dr Sen lasted for nearly two hours and was focussed on the basic theme of relationship between growth and poverty in India. Dr Sen, who was earlier in the Planning Commission, was the principal author of several key documents of the Commission, including the Ninth and Tenth Five Year Plans and their Mid-Term appraisals.

Dr Sen said a matter of serious concern pertained to consumption among the poorest of the poor not declining as fast as that of the better of sections among them. It, thus, showed that anti-poverty programmes have not been able to make a dent, he said.

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