Supreme Court slams government for inability to feed poor
11 May 2011
The Supreme Court has once again taken a stern view of the inability of the central government to feed the poor and the hungry, even as food grains were rotting at its warehouses and had to be destroyed.
''Why can't you give it (the food grains) at subsidised rates to the hungry populace,'' asked the apex court. ''You have it. You can't store it. You can't destroy it. Give it to the people who need it,'' said a bench of justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma.
Reiterating its earlier direction to the government to distribute such grains to the poor, the bench yesterday said, ''We are repeatedly requesting you. Please distribute it. You are procuring food grains at a huge cost. But the storage capacity will be inadequate to cope with the fresh harvest.''
This time though, the government agreed to the Supreme Court's pleas; additional solicitor-general Mohan Parasaran told the bench that the government would allocate an additional five million tonnes of rice and wheat to all states and union territories for distribution to 'below poverty line' (BPL) families over the next fortnight.
The court was hearing a petition filed by the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), urging it to direct the government to distribute food grains to the poor, instead of allowing it to rot at its warehouses. Last month, Colin Gonsalves, the PUCL counsel, had suggested to the court that it ask the government to release 10 million tonnes of grains in 150 of the poorest districts in the country, where malnutrition is rampant.
The judges wondered how the government could claim that India was the strongest emerging economy, when there were millions of people and hungry people. ''We cannot have two Indias,'' it warned the government.
Last year's excellent monsoon has resulted in a bumper harvest and massive procurements, with the government's reserve food grains stock adding up to 17.2 million tonnes of wheat by March – as against a target of 8.2 million tonnes. This has resulted in over-flowing warehouses, and rotting of food grains.
The inefficient public distribution system (PDS) has also not been able to handle the crisis caused by the bumper harvest. The central government, reacting to the Supreme Court's concerns, decided to set up a committee to reform the PDS.
