Describing the rotting of food stock as a “criminal” waste of resources, the Supreme Court on Tuesday sought details from the Union food ministry on why adequate storage facilities had not been provided.
“In a country where people are virtually starving, wastage of even a single grain is a crime. It has come out in official records that the food stock is being wasted,” said a bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma.
Taking up a nine-year-old PIL by PUCL on the “failure” of PDS, the court asked the government to arrange waterproof tents to secure the millions of tonnes of foodgrain kept in the open, and also consider a thorough revamp of the existing system. The Union food secretary was directed to clearly state in an affidavit if the government was considering raising economic parameters for identifying “below poverty line” families, and if it would then abolish ration supply to “above poverty line” families.
Since most APL families did not buy rations from PDS shops, highly subsidised food items were going straight to the market, causing the nation a huge loss, the court said.