The Hindu Editorial Analysis
24 August 2020

1) Failing on fires: On Srisailam power plant accident-

 

GS 2- Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability

 


CONTEXT:

  1. A fire in a hydroelectric station located close to unlimited quantities of water would seem to be a contradiction, but as the deadly blaze(fire) in the Srisailam power plant shows, the risk is very real.
  2. Nine people, including five engineers, perished(died) in the facility on the Telangana-Andhra Pradesh border.

 

 

THOROUGH PROBE:

  1. At 900 MW capacity, the plant on the left bank canal of the Krishna is one of the biggest contributors to the Telangana State Power Generation Corporation; another branch serves Andhra Pradesh.
  2. What makes the accident more disturbing is that it comes as another shock in a season of disasters.
  3. Industries and power plants in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Telangana have been wracked(suffered) by accidents during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  4. In Srisailam, the fire appears to have started in a control panel during maintenance.
  5. The victims were unable to make an exit through an escape tunnel and were overwhelmed by smoke, while others at a different level could flee in time.
  6. Going by official accounts, the smoke made it difficult even for rescue personnel to enter the four-storeyed structure.
  7. Moreover, videos made by staff present a spectacle of a small fire rapidly engulfing the working area, trapping the personnel and leaving little room for manoeuvre.
  8. Telangana has instituted a CID inquiry, apart from the plant operator’s own probe.
  9. But an external technical audit with no conflicts of interest could better serve the objective, identifying lacunae(gaps) to stop a future catastrophe(disaster).
  10. It can determine why the victims could not make a safe exit, as per standard procedure.

 

 

RESPONSIBILITY:

  1. Large hydroelectric power plants are usually built well below surface level, where generation, control and transmission equipment are located.
  2. Handling a fire becomes complicated in such circumstances, and safety features have to be extremely reliable.
  3. IEEE standards for substation fire protection, issued a quarter century ago, lay down norms for fixed and portable ventilation systems that can remove heavy smoke — as seen in Srisailam.
  4. Use of fire-retardant materials in construction, dual exits, easy vertical escape routes using staircases and alarm systems are all part of safety codes.
  5. Whether these features were available in the Telangana power plant, and if they were, why the personnel could not use them to quickly escape the inferno should be investigated.
  6. The dam fire is primarily the State government’s responsibility, but the Centre should take the opportunity to review safety in places such as Jharkhand, where extensive underground coal field fires have affected remote communities.
  7. India loses many lives to fires each year: at 12,748 accidental deaths in 2018, nearly double the number caused by forces of nature, according to NCRB data.

 

CONCLUSION:

  1. Only a rigorous(strict) adherence to safety codes can reduce this shocking toll.
  2. Srisailam power plant accident underscores(focusses) the importance of fire safety codes.

 

 

2) Women, uninterrupted: On access to contraception and abortion services-

 

GS 2- Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability

 


CONTEXT:

  1. Among the more serious ramifications(result) of the pandemic has been the rather extensive, even if unintended, disruption of health-care services.
  2. Normal life has been crippled(hit) by the restrictions flowing from control measures, and access to medical services has become infinitely tougher for a vast majority.

 

 

ACCESS TO MEDICAL CARE:

  1. The scale of the impact on women’s lives is only now being recognised.
  2. Global reports of inability to access contraceptives and abortion services during the long lockdown warn of dire consequences, including unwanted pregnancies, increase in domestic violence, and maternal mortality.
  3. A recent estimate by Marie Stopes International (MSI) said about two million women missed out on services between January and June; 1.3 million were in India alone.
  4. According to WHO, a recent survey of responses from 103 countries found that 67% reported disruption in family planning and contraception services.
  5. UNFPA projections indicate that 47 million women in 114 low- and middle-income countries would be unable to use modern contraceptives if the average lockdown continued for 6 months with major disruptions to services, and an additional 7 million unintended pregnancies are expected to occur.

 

DISRUPTIONS:

  1. At the heart of this issue is the bulk of health-care services shifting to cater to COVID-19 related emergencies, and lockdown disruptions.
  2. India listed abortions as essential services under the lockdown.
  3. The disruption of transport services hampered(restricted) access to centres of care, and lack of awareness about these services being available during this period was a factor.
  4. It is pertinent to ask if services to facilitate abortion and contraception were indeed available in the cities and rural areas during the period, despite being listed as ‘emergency’.
  5. Almost 30% of the respondents seeking an abortion said that the clinic in their area was closed, according to the MSI report.
  6. Further, a study in six States by the Foundation for Reproductive Health Services India, showed a severe shortage of medical abortion drugs in pharmacies.
  7. For a country setting out to bolster its contraception and abortion services outreach, this pandemic and its lockdowns have dealt a blow.
  8. The need for contraceptive services remains high in India, with over 1 in 3 women (35%) reporting a need for contraceptive advice, as per the MSI study.
  9. Providing uninterrupted abortion and contraceptive counselling, devices and care services are essential to safeguard the reproductive rights of women, and protect them from abuse.
  10. These services must continue through measures such as telemedicine, incentives to local clinics to open their doors, resolving drug supply chain disruptions, besides improving access to health care.

 

CONCLUSION:

  1. For, countries that do not prioritise women’s health-care needs will bear the heaviest of burdens, not so long after.
  2. Access to contraception and abortion services must be continuous.

 

 

 

3) More evidence of India’s food insecurity-

 

GS 3- issues of buffer stocks and food security

 


CONTEXT:

  1. Data from the latest edition of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report show that India retains the dubious(bad) distinction of being the country with the largest population of food insecure people.
  2. Estimates presented in the report which was released by several United Nations organisations show that the prevalence of food insecurity increased by 3.8% points in India between 2014 and 2019.
  3. By 2019, 6.2 crore more people were living with food insecurity than the number in 2014.

 

 

AUTHORITATIVE INDICATORS:

  1. The SOFI report, which is published annually, presents the most authoritative evaluation of hunger and food insecurity in the world.
  2. Since 2017, SOFI presents two key measures of food insecurity- the conventional measure called the Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU) and a new measure called the Prevalence of Moderate and Severe Food Insecurity (PMSFI).
  3. Both of these are globally-accepted indicators of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Target 2.1 to end hunger and food insecurity.
  4. While PoU is focused on estimating the proportion of population facing chronic deficiency of calories, the PMSFI is a more comprehensive measure of the lack of access to adequate and nutritious food.
  5. Estimates of PoU are based on food balance sheets and national surveys of consumption.
  6. Given that consumption surveys are done infrequently in most countries, these estimates are often based on outdated data and are revised when better data become available.
  7. In contrast, the PMSFI is based on annual surveys that collect information on experiences of food insecurity (such as food shortages, skipping meals, and changing diet diversity because of a lack of resources).
  8. The PMSFI uses the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), a gold standard in food security measurement developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, for estimating globally-comparable prevalence rates.
  9. Given the solid conceptual foundations of this methodology and the ease of collection of data, FIES and the PMFSI have been widely adopted by countries across the world.
  10. Unlike most other countries, the government of India neither conducts official FIES surveys nor accepts estimates based on FAO-GWP surveys.
  11. Although FAO-GWP surveys are conducted in India, India is among the few countries that do not allow publication of estimates based on these surveys.
  12. Consequently, as in the past years, estimates of PMSFI for India are not published in SOFI.

 

COUNTRY DATA:

  1. However, interestingly, these estimates can be derived for India from the information provided in the report.
  2. The report provides three-year average estimates of the number of food insecure people for South Asia as a whole and for South Asia (excluding India).
  3. By taking a difference between the two, one can derive the estimates for India.
  4. These estimates show that while 27.8% of India’s population suffered from moderate or severe food insecurity in 2014-16, the proportion rose to 31.6% in 2017-19.
  5. The number of food insecure people grew from 42.65 crore in 2014-16 to 48.86 crore in 2017-19.
  6. India accounted for 22% of the global burden of food insecurity, the highest for any country, in 2017-19.
  7. It is also noteworthy that while the PMSFI increased in India by 3.7 percentage points during this period, it fell by 0.5 percentage points in the rest of South Asia.
  8. India has not released the latest National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) consumption expenditure survey data for 2017-18.
  9. As a result, conventional measures of poverty and food consumption are not available for recent years.
  10. Lack of availability of data from this consumption survey also has implications for the FAO’s PoU estimates for India.
  11. Because of a lack of regular availability of consumption survey data from most countries, the FAO uses supply-wise data on per capita food availability to measure changes in average per capita calorie intake.
  12. While this is a reasonable approach, it has become untenable for India because of a large and growing disparity between the supply-side data and data from the consumption surveys.
  13. Not only do the supply-side data show a much higher level of per capita availability of food than the amount of food that is captured to have been consumed in the surveys, even the direction of change between the two does not seem to be consistent.
  14. While the per capita dietary energy supply in India increased by 3.8% between 2011-13 and 2015-17, the consumption survey data that became available through a media leak showed that the average consumption expenditure (covering food and other expenses) fell by 3.7% between 2011-12 and 2017-18.
  15. On the whole, withholding of consumption survey data by the government has meant that SOFI continues to use outdated data for variability of food intake, making PoU estimates for India untenable.
  16. Given this, estimates of the PMSFI for India have become particularly valuable.

 

CAUSES OF SUFFERING:

  1. The significant rise in food insecurity, as shown by these data, is a clear manifestation of the overall economic distress during this period marked by a deepening agrarian crisis, falling investments across sectors and shrinking employment opportunities.
  2. The latest PLFS data have shown that the unemployment rates in the recent years have been higher than in the last four decades.
  3. It is widely believed that demonetisation and introduction of the Goods and Services Tax were two prime causes of economic distress during this period.
  4. A sudden imposition of an unprecedented and prolonged lockdown in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought renewed focus on the problems of hunger and food insecurity.
  5. With a sudden loss of livelihoods, a vast majority of India’s poor are faced with increased food insecurity, hunger and starvation.
  6. A number of starvation deaths have also been reported in the media.

 

CONCLUSION:

  1. Given this, these estimates of the PMSFI provide an important baseline estimate for the situation before the COVID-19 pandemic.
  2. It is critical for India to conduct a national survey on food insecurity to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security of different sections of the population.