SC deadline to States on BPL families

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, NOV. 28. The Supreme Court today directed all the States and Union Territories (UTs) to identify by January 1 next, families living below the poverty line (BPL) as well as the beneficiaries under the various Centrally-sponsored schemes for giving them relief.

A Bench comprising Mr. Justice B.N. Kirpal and Mr. Justice K.G. Balakrishnan observed that the Chief Secretaries would be responsible to ensure implementation of these directions and asked them to file compliance reports within eight weeks.

The Bench said that after the identification of the BPL families, the States and UTs should ensure that ration cards were issued to them and distribute 25 kg of foodgrains to them every month.

The Bench passed the order on a petition from the People's Union for Civil Liberties which had brought to the court's notice as to how even as the godowns of the Food Corporation of India were overflowing with foodgrains, starvation deaths were taking place in many States.

The Bench, after hearing counsel for the petitioner and the Attorney-General, Mr.Soli Sorabjee, for the Union Government, issued the following other directions:

The Centre to allot foodgrains for full compliance with the Targeted Public Distribution Scheme; the Delhi Government to ensure that application forms for issue of ration cards were made available free of cost and to put in place an effective mechanism for speedy redressal of grievances in this regard. Under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana scheme, the Centre was directed to provide sufficient grain for the Antyodaya families even as the Centre told the court that there had been full compliance by the States, except for States that had not completed the identification of BPL families.

The Centre, States and UTs were asked to consider providing all Antyodaya beneficiaries free foodgrains if they were unable to lift grain due to penury. Under the mid-day meal scheme, the State Governments were asked to implement the scheme by providing every child with a minimum of 300 calories and 8-12 gm of protein each day of the school for a minimum of 200 days.

Under the National Old Age Pension scheme, the States were asked to identify the beneficiaries and to start making payments from January 1, 2002.

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