Demand for comprehensive food policy raised in LS

New Delhi, Aug 31 (UNI) Cutting across party lines, members in the Lok Sabha today demanded that the government make a flexible policy with regard to the APL and BPL families and have a comprehensive food and nutrition policy aiming to achieve a zero-hunger society in the country.

Resuming the inconclusive discussion on the formulation and implementation of comprehensive food and nutrition security scheme as a private member bill introduced by Mr Naveen Jindal(Cong) in December, 2006, Mr Francis Fanthome (Nominated) said it was surprising that though ''we have enough resources our country is ranked 96th in the global hunger index''.

Ms Archana Nayak (BJD) said the Government should make a flexible policy with regard to the APL and BPL families as a farmer's family under the APL category could become very poor in the event of crop failure or flood. ''The Government should keep the options open for the people of these categories to help them out when they are faced with natural disasters, '' she demanded.

She said efforts should be made to increase the food quota for states under the Public Distribution Scheme to improve the availability of foods.

Mr Adhir Ranjan Choudhary (Cong) said it was strange that a country which was the fourth largest economy in the world ranked 126th as per the United nations human development index.

He said there was an urgent need to have a comprehensive food and nutrition policy aiming to achieve a zero hunger society in the country.

He said as per UN norms India is being categorised as an alarming nation facing food scarcity and something should be done very fast to avoid starvation deaths in the country.

He said, ''According to a report prepared by the Planning Commission India is being ranked as number one in the category of underweight children and as per the same report even the children from the Sub-Saharan region were double the weight of our children.'' Mrs Karuna Shukla (BJP) said there was no dearth of planning for the elimination of poverty and towards providing better nutritious food in the country, but those policies remained on paper and nothing materialised at the ground level, and that was the reason that even after 60 years of independence ''we have to discuss this issue in the House''.

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