CHENNAI: India's performance in eradication of poverty and hunger, the first of the Millennium Development Goals, has been inadequate, M.S. Swaminathan, agriculture scientist and chairman, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, said on Sunday.

(World leaders at the Millennium Summit adopted the MDGs in September 2000. The goal referred to reducing by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and those who suffer from hunger and set the deadline of 2015).

Noting that the country had immense possibilities for better performance as it had a strong base of technical and scientific experts, Dr. Swaminathan urged policymakers to take steps for accelerating the pace of the country's progress in accomplishing the MDGs.

Emphasising the importance of making India a ``hunger-free country'' by August 2007 (when the country would observe the 60th anniversary of Independence), he said the National Commission on Farmers, (headed by him), recommended several measures to be taken up in the short run. Combining employment guarantee schemes with those pertaining to food for work, reducing hidden hunger by providing micronutrients, forming local community food banks and strengthening self-help groups by enabling them to take up non-farm employment in the area of agro products and food processing were suggested by the Commission. The existing nutrient support programmes should be restructured by covering pregnant women, children and old/infirm persons on a life cycle.

Participating in a function to mark the launch of a salt product, Dr. Swaminathan said the product had several essential micronutrients and this would contribute to solving the problem of hidden hunger.

Receiving the first pack of `Sundar Health Salt,' S.S.K. Marthandam, vice-chancellor of Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute (a deemed university), referred to the ``nutrient content gap'' between poorer sections and richer sections. This gap should be narrowed by improving the nutrient content to be taken by poorer sections of society. ``Unless this section becomes developed, we cannot call ourselves developed,'' he said, commending the Sundar Serendipity Foundation for developing the product.

Benjamin Cherian, Rotary District 3230-Governor, said in tsunmai-hit areas of the State, the Rotary clubs would distribute free salt packets to be provided by the Sundar Serendipity Foundation. K. Ramu and Malavika Vinod Kumar, trustees of the Foundation, explained the features of the salt product.

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