Che Guevara
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NEW DELHI: "We cannot have two Indias. You want the world to believe we are the strongest emerging economy, but millions of poor and hungry people are a stark contrast," the Supreme Court said on Wednesday pointing to a huge gap between poverty eradication measures and spread of the problem.
The court's anguish was palpable. A Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma asked the government why additional subsidised food grains be not released to 150 poor districts ahead of summer months when starvation and malnutrition visit the population like an annual ritual?
The Bench said, "The government has to do something. It is a tragedy of sorts. We have our food granaries full and in many places overflowing. And prediction is for a bumper crop this year. If that is so, why not allocate substantial food grains to take care of hunger and malnutrition."
Petitioner organisation 'People's Union for Civil Liberties' through counsel Colin Gonsalves suggested release of 10 million tonnes of grains to the 150 poor districts as malnutrition was caused in summer mainly because of non-availability of adequate food.
Additional solicitor general Mohan Parasaran, who appeared for the Centre, undertook to file a comprehensive affidavit by May 10 about the government's proposed corrective steps to tackle hunger and starvation deaths in pockets of Maharashtra, Orissa and Bihar.
But the court said, "The ASG will also take instruction about allocating additional food grains to eradicate or at least reduce the incidence of hunger and malnutrition."
The court also criticised Planning Commission, which was made a party in the PUCL petition, for the criteria it employed to arrive at an estimate that number of people under BPL category was 36% of the population.
The commission had calculated BPL population by employing the expenditure criteria -- a person is poor if he spends less than Rs 17 per day in urban areas and Rs 12 per day in rural areas. Petitioner's representative Biraj Patnaik said the criteria should be doubled to get the real picture of spread of poverty in India.
The Bench said the fixing of purchasing power by the commission appeared arbitrary. "All states, including the Congress-ruled ones, adopting the same parameters have said that the BPL population was much more," it said.
It asked the commission to file a comprehensive affidavit explaining how the spending capacity was fixed as an indicator of poverty and wanted the head of the commission to vet the affidavit before it was filing in court.
TOI
The court's anguish was palpable. A Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma asked the government why additional subsidised food grains be not released to 150 poor districts ahead of summer months when starvation and malnutrition visit the population like an annual ritual?
The Bench said, "The government has to do something. It is a tragedy of sorts. We have our food granaries full and in many places overflowing. And prediction is for a bumper crop this year. If that is so, why not allocate substantial food grains to take care of hunger and malnutrition."
Petitioner organisation 'People's Union for Civil Liberties' through counsel Colin Gonsalves suggested release of 10 million tonnes of grains to the 150 poor districts as malnutrition was caused in summer mainly because of non-availability of adequate food.
Additional solicitor general Mohan Parasaran, who appeared for the Centre, undertook to file a comprehensive affidavit by May 10 about the government's proposed corrective steps to tackle hunger and starvation deaths in pockets of Maharashtra, Orissa and Bihar.
But the court said, "The ASG will also take instruction about allocating additional food grains to eradicate or at least reduce the incidence of hunger and malnutrition."
The court also criticised Planning Commission, which was made a party in the PUCL petition, for the criteria it employed to arrive at an estimate that number of people under BPL category was 36% of the population.
The commission had calculated BPL population by employing the expenditure criteria -- a person is poor if he spends less than Rs 17 per day in urban areas and Rs 12 per day in rural areas. Petitioner's representative Biraj Patnaik said the criteria should be doubled to get the real picture of spread of poverty in India.
The Bench said the fixing of purchasing power by the commission appeared arbitrary. "All states, including the Congress-ruled ones, adopting the same parameters have said that the BPL population was much more," it said.
It asked the commission to file a comprehensive affidavit explaining how the spending capacity was fixed as an indicator of poverty and wanted the head of the commission to vet the affidavit before it was filing in court.
TOI
