Right to food

The “Right to Food Campaign” is an informal network of organizations and individuals committed to the realization of the right to food in India. We consider that everyone has a fundamental right to be free from hunger. Our shared commitment is expressed in the campaign’s foundation statement. The campaign believes that the primary responsibility for guaranteeing basic entitlements rests with the state.
The campaign’s “essential demands” sets the Act in the context of the nutritional emergency in India and the need to address the structural roots of hunger. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) recognizes the “right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food”, as well as the “fundamental right to be free from hunger”. The relationship between the two concepts is not straightforward. For example, “freedom from hunger” (which General Comment 12 designates as more pressing and immediate) could be measured by the number of people suffering from malnutrition and at the extreme, dying of starvation. The “right to adequate food” is a much higher standard, including not only absence of malnutrition, but to the full range of qualities associated with food, including safety, variety and dignity, in short all those elements needed to enable an active and healthy life.
This has led to a sustained focus on legislation and schemes such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), Mid-day Meals (MDM) scheme, PDS (Public Distribution System) and proper implementation of distributing nutrition at NRC and aanganwari. For a brief account of the campaign’s activities so far:-

1. MDM (Mid Day Meal)

The Mid Day Meal is the world’s largest school feeding programme reaching out to about 12 crore children in over 12.65 lakh schools/EGS centers across the country. Our most of the interventional sector is surrounded of adequate nutrition deprived community. We established over 1300 aanganwari for implementation of MDM in remote villages.

The objectives of the mid day meal scheme are:-

(i) Improving the nutritional status of children in classes I – VIII in Government, Local Body and Government aided schools, and EGS and AIE centers.

(ii) Encouraging poor children, belonging to disadvantaged sections, to attend school more regularly and help them concentrate on classroom activities.

(iii) Providing nutritional support to children of primary stage in drought-affected areas during summer vacation.

CID running three Day Care center for children of stone crusher’s community, three Support center for children of carpet worker’s community and three development center for child labor children who are working in hazardous conditions like rag picking etc. In day care center we are providing midday meal cause of the children situated far away from their family. They needs full nutrition support for their growth and development. We are directing on proper and adequate food distribution in aanganwari at villages of District Gwalior, Sheopur, Shivpuri, Guna, Ashok nagar etc.

2. NRC (Nutrition Rehabilitation Center)

In the another edition of our incline action, we established NRC (Nutrition Rehabilitation Center) considering the demand of nutrition based health concern issue taking 80 villages at block Kolaras of district Shivpuri. The child with acute malnutrition will be transferred to NRC for intensive feeding to recover lost weight, development of emotional & physical stimulation, capacity building of the primary caregivers of the child with acute malnutrition through sustained counseling and continuous behavioral change activities. Thus NRC will be intended to function as a bridge between hospital & home care. Hence, NRC will be a short stay home for children with acute malnutrition along with the primary care givers.

To provide institutional care for children with acute malnutrition.
To promote physical, mental &social growth of children with acute malnutrition.
To build capacity of primary care givers in the home based management of malnourished children

3. PDS (Public Distribution System)

PDS means distribution of essential commodities to a large number of people through a network of FPS (Fair Price Shops) on a recurring basis. The commodities are as follows:-

Wheat
Rice
Sugar
Kerosene

PDS evolved as a major instrument of the Government’s economic policy for ensuring availability of food grains to the public at affordable prices as well as for enhancing the food security for the poor. PDS is operated under the joint responsibility of the Central and the State Governments. The Central Government has taken the responsibility for procurement, storage, transportation and bulk allocation of food grains, etc. The responsibility for distributing the same to the consumers through the network of Fair Price Shops rests with the State Governments. The operational responsibilities including allocation within the State, identification of families below poverty line, issue of ration cards, supervision and monitoring the functioning of FPSs rest with the State Governments. Having surveyed at various places around our interventional area, we found that PDS is not implementing properly at numerous places even some of the villages were totally deprived from equal distribution.

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