Any move by the government to dump the public distribution system for supply of food items to the poor is likely to face a tough challenge from various NGOs, which are planning to move the Supreme Court seeking its intervention in the matter.
Armed with a survey report in by NGO, Lok Shakti Manch in various slum clusters in Delhi on whether PDS should be substituted with transfer of cash to the below poverty line (BPL) and “Antyoudaya (poorest of the poor)” families, some NGOs plan to join the People’s Union for Civil Liberties in its pending PIL in the apex court.
The SC, monitoring the implementation of PDS on PUCL’s petition for nearly a decade had set up an empowered committee under Justice D.P. Wadhwa to provide inputs from the states and after finding a series of “flaws” in the system, had passed specific orders state-wise making the chief secretaries and food secretaries personally responsible.
In the survey by Lok Shakti Manch (LSM) in Delhi’s slum clusters, a vast majority of people — nearly 85 per cent — had opposed the government move and instead wanted to improve the PDS with a proper monitoring mechanism. The LSM survey report stated that people were of the view that instead of improving the governance and accountability, the government “is using issue of corruption to dismantle the PDS and its policies are forcing people to live in hunger while their entitlement of food items are being snatched away by suggesting the introduction of cash transfers.” The government had come out with the idea of cash transfer of `1,000 to poor per month per family instead of supplying ration under the PDS scheme to overcome the problem of pilferage. The LSM report, however, stated that neither the proposed amount would be sufficient to buy the same quantity of food which a family got under PDS, nor would it be enough to fulfil the minimum “calorific intake (2,200 kcal)” fixed by WHO.