The Right to Food (RTF) Campaign has filed an interlocutory petition in the Supreme Court questioning the delay in the completion of the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) initiated by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) in 2011.
Citing the delay in the SECC as a cause for holding up the implementation of the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, the RTF Campaign has urged the Supreme Court to ask the MoRD to publish the SECC final lists all over the country within two weeks and that States publish the list of “priority households” under the Food Security Act within three months.
The National Food Security Act, passed in July 2013, required identification of “priority households” eligible for subsidised grains within a year. This was later extended for three months till October. Originally, the UPA government had mandated using SECC for the NFSA, but later it was made optional for States to either use SECC or employ their own criteria. But several States are yet to publish the final lists of SECC even while they have not specified their own criteria. In the SECC, the claims and objections process following the draft lists is on in 272 districts, less than half of the total of 640 districts.
Bihar has so far issued new priority ration cards to 77 per cent of its rural population.
