The Centre on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that a high-level committee has been set up to streamline the public distribution system(PDS), storage and allocation of foodgrain to BPL families.
Attorney General GE Vahanvati, who came to bat for the Centre, submitted that a high-level 10-member committee headed by food and public distribution secretary has been appointed by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, who is himself looking into its functioning, to oversee that all the orders of the apex court are taken care of in the right earnest.
Despite Vahanvati?s submission, the Bench comprising justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Varma sought from the government specific replies to the eight questions posed by it relating to streamlining the public distribution system.
It asked the ministry for an affidavit stating whether it was ready to give about 20 million tonne out of the 55 million tonne foodgrain stored in its warehouses to states for distribution through the PDS.
The Centre should try to allocate foodgrain to the poor on a ?realistic basis? by relying on latest poverty figures instead of depending on 2001 census figures, the Bench said.
?When there is so much difference in the figures presented by states and Centre and when you do not support their figures, why don’t you conduct an independent survey to arrive at a realistic survey. You take up the issue at the highest level,? the Bench asked.
?Our resources are limited and they should be used prudently,?? it said asking the government to computerise the PDS system at the earliest.
The Judges asked the Centre to give a status report with regard to computerisation of the distribution system by December 1, the next date of hearing. Earlier, the government in July had told the apex court that it will computerise the PDS system within six weeks.
Suggesting the government to cap the income of above poverty line (APL) quota, it asked it to initiate criminal cases against people having bogus BPL cards after putting advertisement in media for surrendering them in two weeks and also giving more quota to tribal and drought prone areas. Besides, the government is also supposed to look into the issue of keeping the fair price shops open for 5-6 days instead of present 3-4 days to facilitate BPL families to collect their quota.
The apex court’s remarks came while dealing with a public interest litigation moved by Peoples Union for Civil Liberties’s(PUCL) complaining about large scale corruption in the country’s public distribution system (PDS) and rotting of foodgrain in government godowns.