Inclusion of some non-Governmental officials in the Niti Aayog's newly-constituted working group on nutrition has not gone down well with several public health and nutrition advocates and pediatricians who have viewed it as 'conflict of interest'.
Under the umbrella of Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest-India (NAPi), the activists have written to the Niti Aayog vice chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar alleging that the working group's composition is contradictory to its own National Nutrition Strategy (NNS) guiding principles on ensuring that there was no conflict of interest.
The NNS guiding principles state: “An underlying principle of action is that policy development and programme implementation must be transparent, open to public scrutiny and kept free from conflict of interest, with requisite safeguards. (This includes ensuring that representation on policy , technical advisory groups and various management committees at different levels is free from conflict of interest.)”
However, according to the memorandum dated September 26, “The expert group includes representative of International life Sciences Institute (IlSI), which is reported to be founded by Coca Cola, Pepsi, General Foods and Procter and Gamble. It is a lobbying arm of the food industry globally. IlSI's member trustees include Nestle, Hindustan lever, Abbott Healthcare, Mars, Ajinomoto and Mondelez Foods,” said the NAPi in a letter written to Dr Rajiv Kumar.
Headed by former Health Secretary Keshav Desiraju, the NAPi members include Dr Vandana Prasad and Prof. KP Kushwaha, both pediatricians, Dr. Arun Gupta and Dr JP Dadhich, child health and nutrition advocates, , Dr Prasanta Tripathy, Ekjut Jharkhand, member, Mission Steering Group, National Health Mission, Dr Shoba Suri, nutritionist and Nupur Bidla, social activist.
The forum also alleged that other members of the working group include individuals representing start-ups of nutrition supplements, and on board of MNC food companies.
Niti Aayog's office memorandum dated September 26 stated that it proposed to “reach for fresh ideas for New India by 2022 on improving the nutrition sector”. It also sought inputs on monitoring, effectively implementing and scaling up existing Government schemes in the nutrition sector.
The memorandum listed 22 members in the working group with Dr Vinod Paul, formerly of AIIMS Delhi, as the chairperson. The memorandum had no details of who selected the members or by what criteria, said the NAPi members
“We express our dissent with the decision to include these parties/individuals in a body such as the working group and believe this will negatively influence the policy/programme decisions taken under this group that may hamper public interest,” the activists said.
Unhappy at the composition, they have sought re-constitution of the working group as per the guiding principles of National Nutrition Strategy.
Those from the government in the working group include Alok Kumar, adviser on nutrition in the Aayog, Dr Rajesh Kumar, joint secretary from the women and child development ministry, Dr Soumya Swaminathan of ICMR (recently appointed WHO deputy director general), Pawan Agarwal of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and Dr T longwah, director of the National Institute of Nutrition.