To ensure that no starvation death takes place and people are saved from malnutrition as far as possible, the Supreme Court on Saturday directed the Centre to release five million tonnes of foodgrains immediately for distribution in 150 most poverty-stricken districts or other poorer segments in the country.
Though it was a holiday for the court, a Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma held a special sitting and passed the order, considering the urgency and gravity of the matter.
The Bench heard Gopal Subramaniam, Solicitor-General; Mohan Parasaran, Additional Solicitor-General; Colin Gonsalves, senior counsel for the petitioner (People's Union for Civil Liberties), and other counsel for the respective parties and passed the order.
The Bench said: “Admittedly, in the 150 poorest districts of India, the problem of malnutrition is very intense and is related to the inadequacy or lack of food in those areas.
The Union of India must provide adequate foodgrains for these 150 poorest districts, on a priority basis.
“A number of cases of malnutrition and starvation are reported from time to time. Subsidised food is really meant for this section of our society. Fortunately, the position of foodgrains stocks in our country is extremely good. Mr. Parasaran, ASG, submits that as on April 1, 2011 there are 44 million tonnes of stocks. Perhaps, never before have foodgrains stocks been so high. The bumper crop of this season will further improve the situation of existing stocks. Even after keeping adequate foodgrains for emergency or unforeseen circumstances, we would still have huge stocks in our godowns.”
Further, it said: “Millions of tonnes of foodgrains are lying in the open for years because of inadequate storage capacity. Admittedly, about 55,000 tonnes of foodgrains rotted in Punjab and Haryana. A very large chunk of foodgrains were destroyed in the recent Punjab fire because the foodgrains were lying in open. In this background, the 5 million tonnes of foodgrains which the Union of India has already undertaken to additionally allocate, must go to the most vulnerable sections of our society and the parties are in total agreement about this proposition.
“Looking to the enormity and gravity of the problem, as a one-time measure, it is absolutely imperative in the larger public interest to direct the Union of India to reserve another 5 million tonnes of foodgrains for distribution to the 150 poorest districts or the extremely poor and vulnerable sections of our society. This additional 5 million tonnes of foodgrains would be over and above 5 million tonnes which the Union of India has already undertaken to allocate.
“The estimated population of the country as of March, 2010 is 117.67 crores and according to the office of the Registrar-General, Census, the projected population of India as in 2011 is 119.3 crores (Planning Commission working Group on Population Stabilisation for the 11th Five Year Plan). We see no rationale in not distributing foodgrains according to the estimate of the Union of India. The food allocation should be based on every year's population estimate as carried out by the Planning Commission or the Registrar-General, in the absence of any official census figure,” the Bench said.
Keywords: foodgrain, storage, ration shops, Antyodaya scheme
Food Storages has to be considered only after the poorest of Indians have got at-least 2 full meals a day. Food storages are not utilized properly which in-turn is the main reason for the rise in cost of food grains and Black marketing. Corrupted Politicians and Black marketers are utilizing this Food Storages to there benefit. Millions of Poor Indians does not even know that when they are starving, actually they have got abundant stock of food Grain in the Storages getting rotted without adequate storing facilities.
A welcome step by the Supreme Court but people should not be surprised if some minister in govt or the PM himself takes on the Supreme Court for breaching its constitutional mandate and treading into legislative and executive spheres, as he had done last year when the court passed a similar observation. Regarding free grain distribution to the poor, last year also the logic was given that free supply of grains would distort the grain market and would affect the planters. But any common man also knows that ultimately the grain which is excess is reaching into the market and distorting it (through black marketing, with or without the knowledge of govt). Moreover, the priority has to be to save millions of lives rather than worry about some presumptive loss to farmers. Fact of the matter is that our leaders are more worried about profits of corporates rather than those dying of hunger. Yesterday night only, the prices of petrol has gone up by Rs 5, in last 2 years increased by Rs 23! This govt is totally insensitive to common man. All of its promises of 'govt of aam aadmi' is just lip service and a sham. BJP fills the pockets of corporates openly and without disdain, Congress does it covertly. The poor of the country will keep dying while the govt keeps burning the excess grains, giving economic logics. Nothing will change in this country.
With the kind distinguished economic qualification from hoary institutions like Oxford/Cambridge, many of us had a great expectations of Dr. Man Mohan Singh to provide economic leadership to liberate the country from starvation and malnutrition and effectively implement a supply chain management and deliver food where it was most needed. It is great let down that the Government of Dr. Singh is not seriously concerned either about rotting food grains or about the malnutrition deaths and suffering of the poor people. By their callous indifference, the present Government has given handle to NGO to file public interest litigations to draw the attention of the final appeal court of the land of the rulers being on the wrong side of public interest and constitution. The Government has forfeited its right to protest against Supreme court for interfering in policy matters. It is matter of great shame and failure of governance that 63% of children in India go to bed without any food as per a UN study while mountains of food grains are allowed to rot. No wonder there is fertile ground for the violent groups like Naxalite and Maoists to flourish.
Giving away food grains for free will bring down the floor-price and will impact farmers negatively, which will reflect back again on it's production and distribution. As such the economics of the situation has to be analyzed before implementing the court-order although prima-facie it appears to be a humanitarian gesture.
In IT world , we have information about stars silly activities , sports , education , elections but no info about reality and poverty. Govt. does have information on Income Tax , GDP but don't have info about poor people; no info about common issues.
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