New Delhi, April 23
The Centre today told the Supreme Court that it was not in a position to increase the subsidy on foodgrains sold through the fair price shops (FPS) under the public distribution system (PDS) despite the steep increase in the population from 84 crore in the 1991 census to 121 crore in 2011.

Arguing before a Bench of Justices TS Thakur and FM Ibrahim Kalifulla, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) PP Malhotra said any additional financial burden arising from the increase in the number of below poverty line (BPL) and above poverty line (APL) families should be borne by the state governments. “The states should also contribute” instead of demanding that the Centre should shoulder the entire responsibility of helping the poor through the PDS, the ASG said.

Nevertheless, the Centre was trying to have the Food Security Bill passed by Parliament to address the problem of poverty in a comprehensive way as the proposal involved a subsidy of Rs 23,000 crore, he said.

At this, the Bench made it clear that no family that was entitled to subsidised foodgrain should be kept out of the PDS as the government could not discriminate against one section of the poor with another. The government could choose the option of either raising the cost of foodgrains sold through FPS or reducing BPL and APL entitlements in order to extend the subsidy to all poor people without raising the burden on the exchequer, it said.

The Centre said it had accepted most of the recommendations of the Justice DP Wadhwa committee for eliminating rampant corruption in the PDS involving diversion of foodgrain meant for the FPS to the black market. One of the recommendations pertained to setting up state-level corporations and nationalisation of FPS to replace the middlemen in the system.

However, a number of states, including Bihar, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, maintained in the court today that they were not in a position to set up corporations or nationalise FPS in view of the huge financial implications. At this, the Bench said the states could continue to engage their civil supplies departments for transporting foodgrains from the Food Corporation of India godowns to the FPS, instead of setting up a separate corporation for the purpose.