As the National Advisory Council has recommended broadening of the subsidised food supply by extending it beyond the below poverty line (BPL), the vast difference in the Centre and states’ figures of BPL families revealed in the Supreme Court might compound the problems of the Union government in implementing the proposal effectively.
Although it might take a considerable time to put in place the new proposals, the Supreme Court was aghast over the manner even the existing food supply schemes under BPL and Antyodaya Anna Yojna (AAY) were being handled by the Centre.
The vast contraction between states’ claim on BPL figures and Centre’s data has emerged from their affidavits before the Supreme Court after it had questioned the states why they were not distributing 35 kg of ration to BPL and AAY families every month. Majority of states were found distributing rations in the range of 15 to 25 kg per.
Lawyers for majority of the states submitted before a Supreme Court bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandri and Deepak Verma that the reason for low distribution was the “low receipt” from the Centre.
The affidavit of Centre on the food supply position to BPL and AAY families was virtually ripped apart by the counsel for People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), whose PIL on food supply to poor is being monitored by the SC for a decade.
PUCL counsel Colin Gonsalves pointed out before the SC bench last week that the Centre’s claim of 5.9 lakh BPL and AAY families was even “contradicted” by agriculture and food ministry’s ‘monthly food bulletin (MFB), which had put it at 6.5 lakh.
The PUCL counsel even challenged the MFB figure stating that the ministry’s calculation was “wholly unrealistic” as it was based on latest “estimates” of 2007 for which the base was 1991 census not the 2001 census while new estimated of 2010 census were available now. “If we go by states’ figures then the number of BPL families is almost double than the Centre’s figures,” the PUCL counsel said, explaining that the Centre has done the last revision of AAY only in 2005 after a series of orders by the top court.