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Wasting foodgrain a crime: SC
R Sedhuraman
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, July 27
Observing that wasting foodgrain is a “crime”, the Supreme Court today suggested distribution of rotting wheat straightaway to the poor and relaxing the criteria for BPL families to bring more people under the public distribution system (PDS).

A Bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma asked the Union Food Secretary to submit the government’s response to the suggestions by August 12.

Making a series of proposals to prevent rotting of foodgrains due to lack of storage facilities, the Bench said the upper limit of Rs 1 lakh annual income for the BPL family category should be raised to enlarge the ambit of the PDS. After relaxing the criteria for BPL families, the PDS system should be stopped for the above poverty line (APL) families. Since the APL families were not availing of the PDS, their quota was being diverted to the open market by unscrupulous elements, the apex court explained.

The government should also consider involving cooperatives in the PDS and computerisation of the scheme to break the nexus between flourmill owners, inspectors and ration shop owners. This would also prevent fudging of data, pilferage and black marketing, the Bench said.

The Bench passed the order after senior counsel Colin Gonsalves, appearing for the PIL petitioner, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), said a whopping 62 million tonnes of wheat and other foodgrains were stored in the open under thin plastic sheets. Unless the grain was moved to a secure place, it would go waste in the ongoing monsoon, he said.

During arguments, the Bench observed that in a country where people were starving “wasting even a single grain is a crime” and quoted official records to show how a large part of food stocks was getting rotten. The government should construct adequate storage facility and till the time this was done, it should provide waterproof tanks to store food stocks, the apex court said.