Results from our second round of community surveys are now available, conducted on June 14th and 15th, with responses from 702 ration card holders across Bihar, Jharkhand, UP and MP. The surveys point towards grave issues arising for nutrition and food security, especially for children. State-wise results are here.
- Only 57% of ration card holders received the committed double rations, i.e. extra 5 kg of grain (wheat or rice) during the lockdown. Only 49% received 1 kg of daal during the period.
- The quality of food grains provided during the months of April and May was good or fair accordingly to 57% of the people, while 30% found the quality to be poor.
- Of those who have young children, 77% did not receive any food items or cash from the Aanganwadi centers during the lockdown.
- 69% of school going children did not receive any food items or cash as committed for the mid day meal scheme. Curfew-like restrictions during the lockdown, the unavailability of teachers for distributing food items to home, and problems with procurement of food grains, were some of the main reasons behind the non-implementation of this scheme.
- Financial support of Rs 1000 committed to ration card holders under the PM Garib Kalyan Yojana did not reach 48% of the people. Lack of cooperation from officials, and problems with fixing Aadhar and bank linkage errors were the main factors that led to gaps in the implementation.
- 48% ration card holders did not have names of all the family members included in their respective ration cards. Lack of cooperation of officials was cited as the foremost reason, along with lack of information, in getting a new ration card issued or for adding a family member’s name in existing ration cards.