In a major boost to the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal for initiating welfare measures for the poorest sections, the Supreme Court on Monday showered praise on it for taking concrete steps to implementing its order on providing night shelters to homeless in the big cities.
The appreciation to the West Bengal government was quite in contrast to earlier rap to it during the Left Front government when the court found the state’s affidavits on the issue lacking in substance as well action on the ground level. The Modi government of Gujarat also came in for praise after the court initially had also found its action lacking but Mahatrasthra’s Congress-NCP coalition continued to get “adverse” comments for “mismatch” in its policy and implementation.
The Mamata government came in for special praise as West Bengal became the first state to identify actual number of homeless people in three major cities — Kolkata (16,300), Hawarah (1,400) and Asansole (85) — and promising to build separate night shelters by the end of the year for men and women after every one lakh population and making them available round the clock to the homeless.
“The efforts of the West Bengal governments are appreciable. The government has to be complemented. All problems have been dealt with in the affidavit by the chief secretary of the state,” a bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma said. While expressing the hope that the government would live up to its promise to complete the project by the year-end, the court asked the state to file a status report on the progress of the work by October 31.
The Gujarat’s chief secretary in the affidavit stated that 45 night shelters were being built in Ahmedabad, 28 in Surat, 14 in Vadhodra and 9 in Rajkot and all of them would be ready within six months.
The top court, taking stock of the situation state-wise, was, however, not happy with the performance of Maharasthra and asked its counsel “if West Bengal can do it in such a short time (after change of government) why can’t Maharashtra do it and identify the homeless people.”
“The affidavit (of Maharasthra) does not reflect that the policy guidelines have been implemented on the ground level,” the court said while giving the state also time to file the status report by October 31 on its proposed 58 night shelters.
Even the Delhi government, which was the first to implement the Supreme Court order the chilling winter of 2009, was ticked by the top court for slackening its drive and was asked to firm up its action.
“You (Delhi government) were the first to show the light but seems to be loosing the esteem,” the court told its counsel.