Food Security Atlas of Rural Maharashtra

In food security outcomes in Maharashtra ranging from secure to extremely insecure, the coastal districts of Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg are secure while the hill-forest districts of Nandurbar, Chandrapur, and Gadchiroli, are extremely insecure, and remaining districts lie along this range. Almost all the districts of both Vidarbha and Marathwada fall within the insecure categories.

Agricultural productivity is uneven across Maharashtra. The share of irrigated cropped area, which is concentrated in Pune, Nashik, and the coastal Konkan belt, has risen in Western Maharashtra from 6.48 per cent in 1960-61 to 15.41 per cent in 1999-2000. The Western part of Vidarbha and Marathwada have the lowest levels of irrigation in the state.

The four indicators used to construct the Food Availability Index are Share Forest Area, Irrigation Extent, Per Capita Value of Agricultural Output, and Paved Roads. Thane, Nandurbar, and Gadchiroli districts are categorised as extremely insecure on the food availability index, Parbhani and Jala districts are categorised as secure, and other districts in Maharashtra lie along this scale of food availability.

Rural wages are an indicator on the access to food index. Maharashtra had one of the lowest wage rates in India, at about ten Rupees lesser than the national average of Rs.48.89 in 2004-05. Low income levels affect monthly per capita expenditure, which is another indicator of access to food. In rural Maharashtra, monthly per capita expenditure was lower than the national average in 2004-05, pointing to weaker food security, the report notes.

In a comparison of food access status between districts in Maharashtra, there is a sharp divide between secure and insecure regions. Districts in southern Maharashtra are secure while hilly regions of Gadchiroli, Dhule, and Nashik are among those categorised as severely insecure, and Nandurbar is extremely insecure.

Factors determining food absorption are the percentage of households having safe drinking water, the percentage of households having toilet facilities, and the number of villages per primary health centre. The report notes that 79.8 per cent households had access to safe drinking water according to statistics collected in 2001 and 2005. Maharashtra performed very poorly in access to primary health centres, with only Gondiya district having a primary health centre in more than half its villages.

Nandurbar, Kolhapur, Jalgaon, Dhule, and Latur are the districts categorised secure on the food absorption index of Maharashtra. Chandrapur, Yavatmal, Washim, Ratnagiri, and Sindhudurg are categorised extremely insecure, and other districts in the state lie along this index.

The nutritional status of children in rural Maharashtra is at par with the national level. Maharashtra reports lower numbers of children under three who are underweight or wasted than national levels, which suggests improvement in food security for children.

The report identifies Gadchiroli, Nanded, Nandurbar, Thane, Yavatmal, Nashik, Bhandara, Chandrapur, Gondiya, Nagpur, and Wardha as priority districts needing urgent intervention to bolster food security.

Focus and Factoids by Kanak Rajadhyaksha.

PARI Library's health archive project is part of an initiative supported by the Azim Premji University to develop a free-access repository of health-related reports relevant to rural India.