Even as the Government has released draft of the National Food Security Bill, experts from world's largest humanitarian organisation have said that the proposed legislation alone will not be sufficient to wipe out hunger from India and more needs to done for ensuring food to poor families.

Noting that world across over one billion people go hungry to bed including in India, they have suggested a holistic approach to secure livelihood for poor and sufficient food grains production for achieving the goal of the Food Security Bill.

“Food alone will not be the answer.... government needs to plan for providing livelihood to poor families and produce more food in sustainable manner,” Mihoko Tamamura, World Food Programme director (India), said at a function on Thursday in Delhi.

On the occasion, World Disasters Report-2011 was released by International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies which comes close on the heels of the draft of the Food security Bill.

Under the Bill, the Government has proposed that 46 per cent and 28 per cent of people in rural and urban areas respectively will get 7 kg of food grains monthly. It also says another 29 per cent and 22 per cent in rural and urban India respectively will be provided 3 kg of food grain per month.

Jagan Chapagain, IFRC director for Asia-Pacific, said that given that millions of Indians spend more than 50 per cent of their household income on food, a steep rise in the price of basic food stuffs is extremely detrimental to their health and welfare.

He said around 800 million Indians or 71 per cent of the population live in rural areas where agriculture is a major source of livelihood. But “its not just food that is becoming expensive, the price of new technologies, seeds, fertilisers and fuel needed to transport food is also going up. More can be done to boost the agriculture sector as a way of protecting people who find themselves at the mercy of inflation and the global stock markets.”

However, it's not only malnutrition, but the number of obese is increasing in India and China, home to nearly half the world's hungry people, other south east Asian countries. One of the reasons is increasing FDI and over-dependency on ready made or fast food, Chapagain said but maintained that there is no country specific data on the issue.

“At least one billion people are undernourished while a staggering 1.5 billion people are overweight, including an increasing number in low and middle income countries,” said the report even as Chapagain maintained that “Excess nutrition kills 2.4 million annually, more than hunger.”