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New Delhi, India – Tabassum Nisha and her five children live in a shack in a narrow corner of the Malviya Nagar community in New Delhi.
The 38-year-old widow used to be a maid. She used to make a living on a monthly income of $50. At that time, she needed twice as much money to feed her children.
In March last year, the Indian government suddenly announced a blockade to contain the coronavirus pandemic. It was almost impossible to make ends meet and Nisha lost her job.
During the months-long lockdown, she fed her children in some way and sought small loans from neighbors and shopkeepers. When they stopped helping her, she sought help from charities in the city.
It is becoming more and more difficult for Nisha to feed her children. In order to reduce the burden, she married her 18-year-old daughter in December last year.
Nisha believes that the lockdown will not last beyond 2020. But another blockade was announced in April this year because the country is facing a brutal second wave of the virus.
This time, there is no charity around to support her and her children. She said that she ate one meal a day and survived the second blockade.
Now, the anticipation of the third COVID lockdown makes her afraid of starving to death.
Tabbasum Nisha in her shack in the Malviya Nagar community in New Delhi [Srishti Jaswal/Al Jazeera]Nisha is one of millions of poor Indians excluded from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship food security program Pradhan Mantri Ghareeb Kalyan Ann Yojana (PMGKAY). Reason: They did not have a ration card.
A ration card is a document issued by the state governments to families who are eligible to purchase subsidized food from the public distribution system under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).
A ration card based on the 2011 Census
Since 2013, Nisha has applied for a ration card three times. Although she was eligible, she never issued it.
PMGKAY claims to be the world’s largest food security program, aiming to feed India’s poorest people during the pandemic. It provides 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of free rice or wheat and one kilogram (2 pounds) of beans for each family holding a ration card, as well as the regular rights attached to the card.
However, Nisha was unable to obtain one because the state of Delhi where she lives has exhausted the quota for the number of ration cards.
In 2021, 22 of India’s 29 states will have less than 5% of the remaining quota.
This is because the quota is based on the 2011 census and is therefore seriously underestimated. The next census, originally scheduled to be completed this year, was postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic.
At the same time, the number of people not covered by the NFSA has increased significantly over the past ten years.
think about it. When the Delhi government announced in 2020 that it would provide food without ration cards as a temporary measure, in addition to the 7.3 million people who have ration cards, more than 6.9 million people without ration cards have also appeared.
Amrita Johri, a member of the Right to Food Movement, told Al Jazeera: “This situation underestimates the ration card quota, so that almost half of Delhi’s population in need of food security during the pandemic is excluded from the main food security. Outside of the plan.”
Like Nisha, 51-year-old Rahela has the same name and applied for a ration card in 2018. Radha, 37, applied in 2019, and Haripyari, 22, applied in 2021. They are all waiting for news from the government.
Others such as 60-year-old Rani Devi and 22-year-old Nuzat Bano cannot apply at all because of the complicated eligibility requirements, such as proof of residence, electricity bills and other documents.
Rani Devi, 60 years old, sits in her room, which is also used as a kitchen, bathroom and living room [Srishti Jaswal/Al Jazeera]“If this is the case in the capital, what will the state of rural India look like?” Jory asked.
“We may also die of hunger”
The direct result of the flawed public distribution system is to exclude India’s most vulnerable people, who have suffered from hunger and unemployment during the pandemic.
This phenomenon even caused some people to starve to death.
Last year, five-year-old Sonia died in the neighboring city of Agra, Uttar Pradesh, because her family did not eat for 15 days during the coronavirus lockdown. After the girl died, her family received a ration card.
“If we don’t get the ration card before the third wave, we might also starve to death,” Lahra, a family of four who wants to feed on, told Al Jazeera.
NFSA covers 50% of the urban population and 75% of the rural population in India, and provides them with subsidized food under the public distribution system through ration cards.
The distribution of the state cards was finally determined by the Planning Commission of India using the 2011-2012 National Sample Survey (NSS) household consumption survey data.
More than 10 years have passed since the data was released, and experts such as Dipa Singha, assistant professor of economics at Bedka University in New Delhi, called it a “policy blind spot.”
“The government is aware of the huge gap between the paper and the field. They don’t want to increase subsidies for food, because increasing subsidies will directly increase India’s fiscal deficit. Although India has surplus food,” Sinha told Al Jazeera.
Nida Praveen’s mother, Nuzat Bano, was unable to feed her all day.Delhi resident Bano has no ration card [Srishti Jaswal/Al Jazeera]At present, the Indian granary stock controlled by the Food Corporation of India has reached a record 100 million metric tons-about three times the buffer stock standard.
‘Boundary between life and death’
In May 2020, when images of a large number of migrant workers walking on the highway began to be shown on TV screens, the Supreme Court of India took action spontaneously.
The Supreme Court acknowledged that most migrant workers who suffer from starvation and extreme poverty are excluded from the public distribution system because they do not have a ration card.
“In the face of the climax, the government announced in May 2020 that it will provide rations to 80 million people who do not have ration cards, but only in May and June,” said Jory.
“However, even this has not been implemented correctly. The data shows that the government can only identify food and distribute it to 28 million beneficiaries.”
Jorry said that less than 3% of the food distributed in Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Uttarakhand.
When a similar situation occurred in 2021, the government told the Supreme Court on June 9 that its 2020 plan was valid for only two months, and it had told the states to formulate their own plans as needed.
Some states do not provide food to people who do not have a ration card, while others provide one-time relief.
Without a job, Nisha said that she often feeds her children hungry by herself.
“I want to educate my children. That’s why I didn’t force them to do child labor. I don’t remember when I last fed them milk or eggs. We mainly eat potatoes because it is the cheapest,” she told Peninsula TV station.
India ranks 94th in the 2020 Global Hunger Index of 107 countries, or “worrying”.
“The government does not accept that people are starving. It is generally believed that the blockade will cause hunger, and everything is fine after that. Without jobs, the informal economy is greatly affected by the pandemic, and the government refuses to see it,” Sinha said.
Rani Devi and her two granddaughters in a shack in New Delhi [Srishti Jaswal/Al Jazeera]When Al Jazeera visited Rani Devi’s shanty town, she ate nothing but frozen fat and salt. The 60-year-old widow is responsible for feeding her three grandchildren.
Her 14-year-old grandson is a rickshaw driver and the only earner in the family. His daily income is between 4-5 US dollars.
“The government did not realize that it is more serious to exclude errors than to include errors. Usually, poor quality of grain provided under the public distribution system is the boundary between life and death,” Sinha told Al Jazeera.
“If Sonia’s family had a ration card, she might still be malnourished but still alive.”
In 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that without a ration card, food should not be denied to those in need.
This year, the Supreme Court reiterated its order and added that the quota should be revised based on current population estimates. The court also instructed all state governments to provide dry food to the hungry as long as the pandemic in India continues.
“However, so far, the state government has not devised such a plan,” activist Anjali Bhardwaj told Al Jazeera. She said she had sent legal notices to several states, asking them why they did not follow the Supreme Court’s instructions.
In its reply to Bhardwaj on August 24, the Federal Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution stated that it will only be possible to make any changes to the quota estimates after the next census is published.
“It is very likely that once the pandemic is over, the next census will be issued. What will these people do during the epidemic? Will they starve to death?” Baldvaj asked.
“The court has upheld the citizen’s right to life time and time again, and upheld the citizen’s right to live with dignity. When a person is forced to beg for food, what dignity is left?”
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