‘Supply to APL must continue’
Solicitor-general Gopal Subramaniam said the government has accepted the Supreme Court’s proposal for computerisation of the PDS in coordination with the Department of Information Technology, National Informatics Centre and Unique Identification Authority of India. The Centre was allowed six weeks to submit a progress report on its computerisation plan.
The government, however, disagreed with the court’s earlier proposal to scrap the supply of subsidised rations to above-poverty-line (APL) families. It said the supply to this segment would continue as there were sufficient food stocks with the government.
The court had proposed to stop the supply to APL families on the premises that a vast majority of them do not buy rations from fair price shops and that the highly subsidised stock was straight away going to the black market, which amounted to “subsidising corruption”. Besides, the apex court directed that at least a huge FCI warehouse should be built in each state to overcome the problem of preserving “precious” food stocks. The court passed the direction on a two-year-old PIL by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties alleging that the PDS has virtually crumbled.
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