Coronavirus: India’s lockdown becomes hunger games for millions of country’s poorest
- Restrictions on movement in the nation of 1.3 billion people have been brutal on the poorest, with many falling through what patchy safety nets do exist
- A US$22.5 billion crisis package unveiled last month was supposed to help, but the relief is not reaching everyone who needs it
In the eastern state of Jharkhand, 42-year-old Nirel Lakda has not worked in over a month. Even before the lockdown, he struggled to get by, earning 300 rupees (US$3.91) a day as a casual labourer. Now, the single father of two young daughters has run out of money and food, and relies on the charity of his sisters to survive.
“Between paying for food and my daughter’s school bills, I had barely anything left to save,” he said.
According to government data, nearly 67 per cent of India’s population is eligible for subsidised grain under the country’s National Food Security Act, which acts as a kind of safety net for the poor by providing essentials at affordable prices via its public distribution system.
Or at least, that’s the intention. Observers say problems with the way food is allocated and a reliance on census data that is almost a decade old mean at least 100 million of the country’s poorest are not covered by the system at all.