By R. Suryamurthy
India has long prided itself on achieving self-sufficiency in food production. We have warehouses overflowing with grain, a sprawling public distribution system, and a catalogue of welfare schemes promising to end hunger. But behind the façade of abundance lies a quieter, more insidious crisis — one of stagnating nutrition and widening inequality in what Indians are actually eating.
The government’s newly released Nutritional Intake in India report, based on back-to-back Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys (HCES) for 2022–23 and 2023–24, confirms what nutritionists and development economists have been warning for years: India’s food security approach remains stuck in the past. We are still measuring success by how many calories people consume — instead of what kind of calories, how balanced their diets are, or whether the most vulnerable are getting what they need to thrive.
The numbers may appear stable, even comforting, on the surface. Calorie intake per capita is holding steady: 2212 Kcal in rural areas and 2240 Kcal in urban India for 2023–24. Protein and fat consumption have nudged up marginally. The poorest segments have seen slight improvements, with the bottom 5% of rural households increasing their calorie intake by 81 Kcal from the previous year.
But this is nutritional stagnation disguised as progress. These are gains that barely move the needle — especially when weighed against a decade of economic growth, rising household consumption, and billions spent on food and nutrition schemes. And they come nowhere close to the kind of dietary improvements needed for a country aiming to harness its demographic dividend.
It is now widely understood that calories alone do not ensure health. A diet high in starch, oil, and sugar can meet energy requirements while still leaving the body starved of essential nutrients. India’s persistent dependence on cereals as the primary source of protein — accounting for nearly half of rural protein intake and 39% in urban areas — is a case in point. That figure has fallen modestly since 2009–10, but the replacement hasn’t been in the form of dairy, eggs, or pulses. Instead, processed “other” foods have crept in, bringing with them the risks of hidden hunger and rising non-communicable diseases.
The underlying message is clear: India is eating more, but not eating better. And that distinction has far-reaching consequences for productivity, cognitive development, maternal health, and child survival.
The nutritional gap between India’s rich and poor is not just wide — it is structural. While the top 5% of urban Indians consume over 3000 Kcal per day, the poorest in rural India still average under 1700 Kcal. Even among those seeing slight increases in intake, the quality of their diet remains subpar, dominated by low-cost staples. The narrow gains at the bottom are nowhere near closing the gap.
In a country where economic inequality is already politically and socially volatile, nutritional inequality adds a quiet but potent layer of exclusion. It is not just what’s on the plate — it’s what it symbolizes. The ability to afford milk, pulses, fruit, and meat is now a marker of class, geography, and caste.
This report should serve as a serious wake-up call for our nutrition policy. While flagship programs like the Mid-Day Meal Scheme, POSHAN Abhiyaan, and ICDS continue to expand their reach, their focus remains heavily tilted toward calorie sufficiency and cereal distribution. India still frames its success in terms of tonnes of grain moved and subsidies disbursed — not by tracking dietary diversity, nutrient absorption, or health outcomes.
The state is feeding people, but not nourishing them. And without a fundamental rethinking of priorities, we risk locking millions of Indians — especially children and women — into cycles of low productivity, poor health, and unrealized potential.
What’s more troubling is what the report doesn’t fully reveal. While it acknowledges “wide variation” across states, it withholds state-wise breakdowns that are essential for targeted interventions. Nutrition is deeply local — influenced by regional diets, public infrastructure, poverty levels, and cultural practices. Aggregated national averages conceal these micro-crises.
A tribal village in Odisha, a slum in Bhopal, and a wealthy Delhi neighbourhood might all show up in the same national average, but they live on entirely different nutritional planets. We urgently need disaggregated data — by state, by caste, by gender, by region. Without it, policymaking remains blindfolded and imprecise.
India’s nutrition crisis is no longer about the presence or absence of food — it’s about access, diversity, affordability, and awareness. We need to shift our framework from “food security” to “nutrition security.”
This means: Rebalancing subsidies to make pulses, dairy, and eggs more accessible to the poor; Reforming school and anganwadi meals to include nutrient-rich foods instead of just rice and wheat; Investing in cold chain infrastructure so that perishable, protein-rich foods can reach rural areas; Running sustained public awareness campaigns around dietary diversity, especially for adolescent girls and pregnant women.
And most of all, it means listening to what the data is telling us — not celebrating stability, but recognizing stagnation for the threat that it is.
India is at a crossroads. We can continue patting ourselves on the back for feeding 800 million people through the food security system. Or we can acknowledge that true development means making sure those 800 million are eating the right food — not just enough food. The latest nutrition data is not a report card. It is a red flag. We ignore it at our peril. (IPA Service)
