The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned the government’s commitment to run community kitchens to stave off hunger across the country, saying the first job of a welfare state was to ensure that people did not starve to death.
“Every welfare state’s first responsibility is to provide food to people dying due to hunger,” Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana remarked.
The court was annoyed at the lack of details regarding the government’s progress in framing a national policy to run community kitchens in consultation with State governments.
The court found that the affidavit merely said the government was still “extracting information”. The court said the affidavit did not reveal much about the scheme or consultation with States or, for that matter, the funds required.
The court gave the government three weeks as a last opportunity to hold a meeting and frame the policy.
“Come up with a comprehensive scheme, identify areas where there is an immediate need... if you want to take care of hunger, no constitution law will come in the way,” the court addressed the government side.
The court was hearing a petition that highlighted how starvation deaths continued to eat into the right to life and dignity of social fabric and a “radical” new measure like community kitchens needed to be set up across the country to feed the poor and the hungry.
The petition filed jointly by activists Anun Dhawan, Ishann Dhawan and Kunjana Singh, represented by advocate Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi, drew attention to how Tamil Nadu’s Amma Unavagam had become a roaring success by involving peers in self help groups and employing the poor to serve hygienic food to eradicate the gnawing problem of hunger on the streets.
The petition referred to Rajasthan’s Annapurna Rasoi, Indira Canteens in Karnataka, Delhi’s Aam Aadmi Canteen, Anna Canteen of Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand Mukhyamantri Dal Bhat in Jharkhand and Odisha’s Ahaar Centre to combat starvation and malnutrition crisis in the nation.
“While there are statistics available for malnutrition deaths in children and adults in the country, there is no official data available for death of persons owing to starvation... Food and Agriculture Report 2018 stated that India houses 195.9 million of the 821 million undernourished people in the world, accounting for approximately 24% of the world’s hungry. Prevalence of undernourishment in India is 14.8%, higher than both the global and Asian average,” the petition had said.
The petition had urged the court to direct the Chief Secretaries of States and Union Territories to formulate a scheme for the implementation of community kitchens and to further ensure that “no person should sleep on an empty stomach”.
It called for creation of a national food grid by the Centre that was beyond the scope of the Public Distribution Scheme.
“Direct the National Legal Services Authority to formulate a scheme to further the provisions of Article 51A of the Constitution of India in order to mitigate deaths resulting from hunger, malnutrition and starvation,” the petition had submitted.
The petition said it was “reported in 2017 by the National Health Survey that approximately 19 crore people in the country were compelled to sleep on an empty stomach every night. Moreover, the most alarming figure revealed was that approximately 4,500 children died every day under the age of five years in our country due to hunger and malnutrition, amounting to over three lakh deaths every year owing to hunger of children alone”.
