Hunger and Malnutrition in India: Causes, Schemes and Where India Stands
Hunger and malnutrition in India: what hunger means beyond calorie counts, why it persists despite a grain surplus, the schemes built to address it, and where the gaps remain. UPSC Indian Society notes.
Hunger in India is not one problem but three: too little food, too little of the right food, and food the body cannot absorb because of poor sanitation and repeated infection. That is why India can run a national grain surplus and still record child stunting near a third and child wasting close to a fifth. This guide covers what hunger means beyond calorie counts, why it persists, what the state has built to address it, and where the gaps remain. For India's standing on the international index specifically, see the Global Hunger Index explainer.
This page covers the GHI 2023 edition. For the latest figures — India ranked 102nd of 123 countries with a score of 25.8 in the GHI 2025 (released October 2025), still in the "serious" band — see our updated Global Hunger Index India explainer.
How Hunger Is Measured
The composite score uses four indicators averaged with specific weights.
| Indicator | Weight | What it Captures |
|---|---|---|
| Undernourishment | 1/3 | Share of population with insufficient caloric intake |
| Child stunting (U5) | 1/6 | Low height-for-age, chronic undernutrition |
| Child wasting (U5) | 1/6 | Low weight-for-height, acute undernutrition |
| Child mortality (U5) | 1/3 | Deaths before age 5 |
A higher score means worse hunger. Categories: low (<9.9), moderate (10-19.9), serious (20-34.9), alarming (35-49.9), extremely alarming (50+).
GHI 2023 Score Components for India
- Undernourishment: 16.6%
- Child stunting: 35.5%
- Child wasting: 18.7%
- Child mortality: 3.1%
The wasting number, global worst, continues to drag India's score.
What is Hunger?
Hunger is the distress caused by insufficient calories over a sustained period. The FAO defines food deprivation as habitual consumption below minimum dietary energy requirements adjusted for sex, age, stature and physical activity. Hunger manifests in three ways: undernourishment, malnutrition and wasting.
Why Hunger Persists in India
Inappropriate child feeding
- WHO and UNICEF recommend breastfeeding initiation within 1 hour of birth; NFHS-5 shows only 41.8% of infants are.
- Exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months at just 63.7% (NFHS-5).
Low female literacy
- Women's education is the single biggest correlate of child nutrition.
- India's female literacy is 70.3% (NFHS-5); Bihar and Rajasthan lag.
Poor sanitation
- Diarrhoeal disease from poor sanitation limits nutrient absorption, a major cause of stunting.
- Improved sanitation coverage at 70% (NFHS-5, up from 48% in NFHS-4), with Swachh Bharat contributing.
Micronutrient deficiency
- Over 2 billion people globally suffer MiND; nearly half live in India.
- Driven by monotonous diets, food processing nutrient loss and crop homogenisation.
Food inflation
- ADB research: 1% food inflation increases infant and child mortality by 0.3%, undernourishment by 0.5%.
- 2022-24 food inflation episodes have squeezed poor households.
Scheme design and delivery
- ICDS has under-prioritised the critical 0-3 age window.
- PM Matru Vandana Yojana excludes teenage mothers and women with more than one child, hurting the most vulnerable.
- PDS exclusion errors and lack of pulses and oil in the basket weaken its nutrition impact.
Structural drivers
- Poverty. 415 million Indians moved out of poverty between 2005-06 and 2019-21 (UN MPI), but pockets remain.
- Climate change. Erratic rainfall, heat stress and extreme events disrupt food production.
- Natural disasters. Floods, droughts, cyclones hit food security disproportionately for the poor.
- Gender inequality. Women eat last and least; women's own nutritional needs go unmet.
- Demographic factors. Girl children, elderly, Scheduled Caste, Adivasi and minority households face sharper deficits.
- Seasonal migration. Children brought to worksites face unsanitary conditions.
- PDS corruption. Leakage and exclusion reduce the real reach of entitlements.
Government Measures
- National Food Security Act, 2013 covers ~80 crore people through PDS.
- POSHAN Abhiyaan for convergent nutrition delivery.
- Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) for free food grains, extended post-COVID.
- PM POSHAN for hot cooked school meals.
- Food fortification. Wheat in 12 states (pilot), edible oil (compulsory 2018), milk with Vitamin D (2017), double-fortified salt (iron + iodine).
- Price Stabilisation Fund for volatile commodities (onion, potato, pulses).
- Anaemia Mukt Bharat and PMMVY.
- One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) for portability.
- Shree Anna Abhiyan to promote millets.
Way Forward
- Systemic overhaul of public administration and service delivery with community engagement.
- Invest in ICDS and Saksham Anganwadi infrastructure and coverage.
- Better targeting and quality of nutrition programmes.
- Inclusion of all vulnerable groups under ICDS.
- Fortification with legal backing.
- Popularise low-cost nutritious foods. Millets, pulses, leafy greens.
- Control micronutrient deficiencies, especially in tribal and remote areas. Replicate Angul (Odisha) district-level grievance camps.
- Address gaps through public awareness and community empowerment.
- Inter-departmental convergence with real-time data, using Poshan Tracker at scale.
- Climate-smart agriculture for food-system resilience.
- Social audits of PDS and POSHAN delivery.
The Government's Critique of the Index
The government has criticised the methodology on three grounds:
- Three of four indicators are child-specific, not reflecting the whole population.
- Undernourishment is based on an opinion poll of 3,000 respondents in Gallup's FIES module.
- The calculation does not account for food availability differences across age groups.
Irrespective of the methodology debate, internal data (NFHS-5, NCRB, CRS) confirm India has serious work to do.
Latest Developments (2024-26)
- GHI 2024 ranked India 105/127 with a score of 27.3, still in the serious category.
- Shree Anna Abhiyan scaled millet production and procurement in 2024-25.
- Free food grain scheme extended for five years under PMGKAY through 2028.
- Caste-census movement is pushing for caste-disaggregated hunger data.
- MPI 2024 (NITI Aayog/UNDP) shows health deprivation, including nutrition indicators, falling; 24.82 crore people exited multidimensional poverty over 2013-14 to 2022-23.
- Women's Reservation Act, 2023 strengthens local governance with gender voice over Anganwadi and PDS.
- Global Gender Gap Index 2024 flags India’s health sub-index where anaemia and maternal nutrition are a drag.
- Climate finance is increasingly being linked to food security in India‘s multilateral engagements.
UPSC Relevance
| GS Paper | Linkage |
|---|---|
| GS I | Society, poverty, vulnerable groups |
| GS II | Welfare schemes, international reports |
| GS III | Food security, agriculture, inflation |
Practice prompts:
- "India's poor ranking in the Global Hunger Index is as much a data debate as a nutrition debate." Examine.
- Discuss the structural reasons for persistent hunger and malnutrition in India and suggest policy reforms.
A high-quality answer should combine the GHI 2023 rank and score components, NFHS-5 data, the structural drivers (education, sanitation, micronutrients, climate), government critique of methodology and a concrete reform package anchored in POSHAN Abhiyaan, fortification and convergence.