The gearing up to ensure food for all
The government order dated 20th March 2020 listed out the responsibilities of local self-government institutions (LSGIs)a for the purposes of addressing problems arising out of COVID-19. The order specified that the LSGIs in collaboration with Food and Civil Supplies Department should ensure the sufficient availability of essential food items to all. LSGIs also needed to take necessary measures to prevent hoarding and control black-marketing of goods by the way of engaging in strict monitoring mechanisms. Further, the order directed the LSGIs to focus more on the vulnerable sections of the society that included differently abled; pregnant women; scheduled caste and scheduled tribe population; slum dwellers and people live in coastal areas; inmates of care homes; migrant labourers, and labourers under National Rural Employment Guarantee Schemeb.5
The extraordinary notification based on the Kerala Essential Service Maintenance Act, 1994 published in the government gazette on 25th of March 2020, notified that processing, procurement, storage, transportation and supply of food items are essential services. This notification enabled the goods vehicles to cross the borders of Kerala and ensured the supply of food and other essential items. The Food and Civil Supplies Department was entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring the procurement and distribution of locally produced food items. The shops/stores/supermarkets that sold food items such as rice, wheat, fresh fruits and vegetables, other grocery items, milk, meat, fish and egg were allowed to open daily at specific opening times, excluding Sundays which was total lockdown day.6
The government of Kerala acted on war footing for ensuring access to food items. First, people with the ration card under the Public Distribution Systemc such as Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY)c cardholders and Priority Household (PHH)c cardholders were provided with the free ration for the full monthly entitlement of April 2020. Along with that non-priority cardholdersc were given 15 kilograms of rice free. And those households without any ration card were also provided with free ration during April 2020.7
Simultaneously, the government was operating community kitchens with the assistance of the Kudumbashree Missiond and local self-government institutions. The guidelines released by the government of Kerala on 26th March 2020 has given detailed protocol for the community kitchens. About INR 236.4 million was released from the budget allocated for Kudumbashree mission from the current financial year (2020–2021) for this purpose. Already functioning restaurants under Kudumbashree units and kitchens that were available at schools, auditoriums, and other premises were also utilised for this purpose. According to the guidelines, each community kitchen was created to serve food to 500 to 1000 people in a designated area. The local self-government institutions were also been issued with the directive that clearly mentioned the modalities for ensuring distribution of food to poor households, destitute and immobile bedridden population. The kitchens were also allowed to generate support in both cash and kind for their operations. In the event of insufficient funds or goods for operating their kitchens, they might approach LSGIs and were supported by the annual plan fund. The food was packaged and the rapid response teams available at the grass root level for emergency response distributed them. In addition, other members of the community (excluding elderly and children) were also volunteering for the distribution of the food strictly adhering the personal hygiene and social distancing as per the guidelines. It was also noted that they were asked to include at least one food item prepared based on locally available green leafy vegetable on their menu. The meals were distributed freely to economically weaker sections and were sold at a price of INR 20 for others members. This has become a model for other states in establishing community kitchens across the country.8
Inclusivity
Special attention was given to ensure food for inmates of elderly homes, orphanages, and for migrant labourers (also referred as guest workers in the government documents). The state government directed the LSGIs to ensure the availability of food either by providing essential items required to cook food at the migrant labourers’ homes or distributing already prepared meals from community kitchens.9,10
The Department of Women and Child Development was directed to provide the supplementary food to children and other beneficiaries served by Anganwadi centrese under Integrated Child Development Services programmee as per the order dated 23rd March 2020. Around 850,000 children below six years, 200,000 adolescents and 300,000 are served under the programme across the state. Anganwadi workers, the frontline service providers of the programme were directed to distribute the fortified nutrimix for children of age six to 36 months and raw food grains in the specified quantities to all beneficiaries at their respective homes.
In the later stage of lockdown, all ration cardholders were given free kits with essential food items distributed through the fair price shops. The food kit included food items such as rice, Atta (wheat flour), pulses, spices and oil. The AAY cardholders were given the food kits first, followed by the priority cardholders, non-priority state subsidyc cardholders and non-priority non-state subsidyc cardholders. 11 Even before the start of lockdown, free food kits were distributed to households with members under observation or undergoing quarantine. In addition to the measures to ensure food security, the government has immediately released of social security pensions including the arrears that benefitted old age people, eligible widows and those who were unemployed and disabled. The direct transfer of INR 1000 ($13.23) was provided to below poverty line households, and workers in the informal sector who were not able to work during the lockdown. 12
Challenges in implementation
The implementation of any of these interventions was not without facing challenges. In the initial phase, the government has to strongly intervene to prevent the price inflation of food items due to hoarding.13 The difficulty of getting volunteers was also reported due to the fear of contracting the disease. Moreover, the spread of the disease in districts bordering other states led to conflicts with the respective states limiting the entry of food items within the local markets of Kerala.14 However, strong political commitment from the side of both ruling and opposition parties has helped to overcome this problem. Timely disbursal of the declared services was also a challenge as most of the delivery points including government offices were working with limited human resources. The food kit distribution also faced challenges as the goods movements were affected during the lockdown period.15
Further, the disbursal of supplementary nutrition to ICDS beneficiaries at their home were experiencing challenges. During follow-up calls that the researcher made by contacting the Anganwadi workers, it was learned that house to house delivery was burdensome as they had no transportation facilities and had to carry the baggage while walking during the house visits. Hence, they invited the family members of the beneficiaries on specific dates to the food grains. The duration of distribution varied from once in 15 days to once a month. AWWs directly distributed the grains to beneficiaries who resided in the vicinity. It was difficult to ensure whether the beneficiary received the entitled amount of supplementary nutrition or it was shared with other members of the family. Regular monitoring of growth by taking height and weight of the children was not happening due to restrictions during lockdown period. It is important to reinstate the height and weight monitoring immediately in the light of consistent alerts on impact of COVID-19 on child malnutrition by the United Nation’s Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) and World Health Organizations’.16,17