The Hindu : SC notice to Centre on BPL families

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 04, 2003

National

National

SC notice to Centre on BPL families

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI March 3. The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Centre on an application from the People's Union for Civil Liberties that it had taken a decision to drastically prune the list of below poverty line families in the country.

A Bench, comprising Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Justice H.K. Sema, asked the Attorney-General, Soli Sorabjee, to file the Centre's response in two weeks giving reasons for pruning the list.

It also wanted the Centre to indicate whether the supply of grains for the food-for-work programme for BPL families had been substantially reduced.

Mr. Sorabjee informed the court that adequate budgetary allocation had been made in the recent budget to give effect to the project.

On behalf of the petitioner it was submitted that the grain supply to a BPL family had been reduced from 10 kg to five kg a day and the number of workdays from 30 days in a month to 10 days.

The counsel said that this would hurt most the poorest of the poorwho had nothing to fend for themselves and urged the court to direct the Government to earmark 20 metric tonnes of foodgrains every year for the food-for-work programme.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National