WASTE NOT,WANT NOT - Why not give foodgrains free to hungry instead of wasting it SC

New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday agreed that foodgrains were rotting due to record procurement in the last three years without matching storage facility prompting the Supreme Court to suggest free distribution of foodgrains to millions of hungry instead of letting it rot in the open. The remarks came from a Bench comprising justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma after additional solicitor general Mohan Parasaran read out food secretary Alka Sirohis affidavit virtually admitting shortage of storage facility. The Bench said: If this is the position,then increase the storage facility by constructing godowns in every district.But not a single grain of food should be wasted.If due to lack of storage facility foodgrains are rotting and getting wasted,then distribute it free to those hungry.The government could also increase the allocation to families covered under BPL and AAY schemes.

The court also took a serious view of the Centres allegation that though it was releasing adequate quantity of foodgrains,the states were not giving the assured 35 kg of grains per family per month under the public distribution system (PDS).It asked the state governments to file an affidavit within a week on this anamoly.Responding to the courts query for abolition of subsidised foodgrains to those above poverty line (APL) category under PDS,the Centre said that foodgrains at very cheap rate were first made available to BPL and Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) category families.

Only when the requirement of BPL and AAY category were met,that the APL category families were provided foodgrains, Parasaran said.The Bench said if that was the position,then there was no need to abolish APL category which get grains at a price higher than BPL and AAY category.The Centre also said that it would consider implementing the apex courts suggestion to allocate foodgrains to poor families on the basis of the size of the family rather than a fixed quota of 35 kg a month.The Food Security Act will take this as well as the National Advisory Committees suggestion to treat the entire population in half of the total number of districts in certain backward states as BPL and give foodgrains accordingly, it said.The Centre also agreed with the courts suggestion for total computerisation of the PDS foodgrain supply mechanism to weed out rampant corruption and pilferage.

Parasaran told the court that the government has set up a task force,National Informatics Centre,which would include representatives from Unique Identification Authority of India,department of food and public distribution,FCI and select food secretaries from states to work out the modalities for integration of existing projects.
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(source-toi)
























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