Corruption in the healthcare and farming sectors, coupled with a growing population, has produced an under-nourished citizenry
Poor health and illiteracy has converted a large part of the Indian population into a mass of unproductive energy. Poor governance and corruption has created islands of prosperity amid looming poverty. A report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation found that India accounts for the highest number of undernourished people in the world, estimated at 194.6 million.
According to the 2011 Census, one out of five seven-year-old children, numbering 4.8 million, is yet to go to school. The biggest challenge for the NDA Government, therefore, is to provide the people with basic needs so that they can contribute towards the country’s socio-economic development.
The high cost of treatment in private hospitals and poor management in a number of Government hospitals has resulted in poor quality of healthcare. Over a decade, greed has infested the health sector, which was once built upon honesty, dedication and human warmth.
Mediangels, a Mumbai-based second opinion centre, found in its survey that almost 44 per cent of its 20,000 sample patients were advised unnecessary pathological tests. The survey found 55 per cent of those patients were advised cardiac surgery, 47 per cent were asked to undergo cancer treatment, 48 per cent were advised knee replacement, 48 per cent hysterectomy and 45 per cent unnecessary fertility treatments.
A leading newspaper has recently reported how middlemen collude with the management of private medical colleges to ‘sell’ more than 30,000 MBBS and over 9,600 MD seats for Rs 12,000 crore every year. The candidates who make enter through the back-door, pay a bribe of Rs 25 lakh to three crore rupees, depending upon the reputation of the college. If a student is ‘buying’ his medical degree for more than three to five crore rupees, he will not be reluctant to monetise his profession.
Many pharmaceutical companies use such doctors for marketing their products. Over the years, health insurance has become a profit-making tool, as many private hospitals inflate medical bill in connivance with insurance officials to maximise the patient’s claims from insurance companies.
Reportedly, former Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan had once said that India’s healthcare system is riddled with corruption, and that the National Drug Authority is a snake pit of vested interest. The rot runs deep.
Food adulteration as well as contamination of food grains and vegetables due to unscientific use of pesticides and insecticides affects the health of the people. The incumbent Health Minister, Mr JP Nadda, also noted that 18 per cent of the food samples tested in the past three years were adulterated. Adulterated samples went up to 19.9 per cent in 2014-2015 from 18.8 per cent in 2013-2014. India has the largest number of people in the world who suffer from organ failure, mainly due to food adulteration and high levels of air and water pollution.
In the past decades, many edible herbs and shrubs have disappeared from villages due to unscientific use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and mono-cropping. Nutrition and food intake can increase if crop diversity is restored through scientific agricultural practices. The Agrochemical Policy Group has estimated crop loss of Rs 6,000 crore due to use of spurious pesticides.
In most part of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, profit-hungry farmer lobbies have replaced the once-rich crop diversity of their States with mono-crops like cotton, maize and sugarcane. This loss in crop diversity is the main reason for growing farmer suicides in Vidarbha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
The United Nation has estimated that India’s population will reach 1.45 billion by 2028 and will surpass China’s. Clearly, a food crisis is looming large on this country. India will continue to have the largest number of underperforming hungry people. China’s ‘one child policy’ for the last 36 years reduced 400 million births, which prevented millions of starvation deaths. So a well thought-out food policy, backed by population control measures, is needed to save India from a food crisis.