SC lashes out at govt on food distribution…….NIKHIL KANEKAL & LIZ MATHEW
Apex court sends clear message on giving food to the poor; government says order hard to implement
Apex court sends clear message on giving food to the poor; government says order hard to implement
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the government to distribute foodgrains free of cost or at a lower price to the poor and told it prevent the wastage of foodgrains at all costs, in a re- buke to the Congress-led Unit- ed Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
The bench comprising jus- tices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma, while hearing public interest litigation on the right to food and public distri- bution system (PDS), clarified the nature of its order to the Union government on 12 Au- gust about distributing foodgrains free to the poor.
It was not a suggestion. It is there in our order. You tell the minister, the court told the government counsel. Agricul- ture minister Sharad Pawar had said previously that it wouldn’t be possible to imple- ment the apex court’s sugges- tion.
Within hours of the Supreme Court’s order on Tuesday, Pa- war told the Lok Sabha: This government will honour the decision of the Supreme Court. Pawar met finance minister Pranab Mukherjee soon after the Supreme Court order in the morning.
Pointing out that the imple- mentation of the court order would be a tough task, minis- ter of state for agriculture K.V.
Thomas said in an interview that the government has to work out the details of such a measure. There is no clarity in the Supreme Court order; the damaged foodgrain is less than a lakh tonne according to the data available to the gov- ernment, he said. The court has asked to distribute it to the poor, but we have to decide the categories we have to distribute, whether to BPL (below poverty line) or AAY (Anty- odaya Anna Yojana, a scheme for the destitute). With every kilogram (of) foodgrain distribution, a subsi- dy component of `8-12 is in- volved. We have to find ways to meet that financial commit- ment. Besides, how can we deny it to APL (above poverty line)? It would be a major is- sue in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and West Bengal, he added.
Senior counsel Colin Gon- salves told the bench that the Central government had failed to implement its own 2005 or- der, which pertains to the dis- tribution of subsidized food grain to socially vulnerable cit- izens and those below the pov- erty line. The Supreme Court bench asked the government to find out the capacity of all the godowns and only procure as much grain as was possible to be stored in proper condi- tions.
It also asked the government to consider the recommenda- tions of the National Advisory Council (NAC), the political interface between the govern- ment and the Congress party.
The NAC, led by the Con- gress party chief Sonia Gand- hi, had suggested the distri- bution of 35kg of food grains per family at `3 per kilogram to all people in the 150 poorest districts in the country and to scheduled castes/scheduled tribes, slum dwellers, rural ar- tisans and all persons earning a daily wage in the remaining 476 districts.
Coming down heavily on the government, the court said: If you know that you do not have the capacity, then why are you procuring more? According to this court, 50,000 metric tonnes have gone waste al- ready.
Unless you take immediate action, much more is likely to get damaged. You do not need great expertise, the bench told additional solicitor gener- al Mohan Parasaran.
The apex court reiterated that those belonging to the APL segment should not get subsidized food.
If this is not possible, the government must revise the BPL list to include people with income of `2-3 lakh per year. It also asked for a fresh survey based on the 2010 population estimate to revise the targeted population. With regard to bogus ration card-holders, who are falsely benefiting un- der the Public Distribution System (PDS), the court said all such cards must be sur- rendered at the earliest and those continuing to use them will face criminal charges. This was in response to a report by The Times of India, to which the court referred, that 250,000 bogus card-holders were mis- using the system in Orissa.
This public interest case on right to food brought before the apex court by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) seeks to clean up the PDS administered by the Food Corporation of India and the ministry of consumer af- fairs, which has suffered from gross negligence, corruption and pilferage in recent years.
The court further suggested the integration of the Mahat- ma Gandhi National Rural Em- ployment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the UPA govern- ment’s flagship job guarantee programme, with the PDS.