SC notice to Centre, drought-hit states on free food grains

The Supreme Court today sought response of the Centre and eight drought-hit states on a plea seeking direction to make available free food-grains guaranteed under National Food Security Act to all affected.
A bench of justices Madan B Lokur and S A Bobde issued notice to Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Odisha and Jharkhand governments.
The court passed the order on a plea which sought adequate and timely compensation for crop loss and input subsidy for the next crop to the farmers affected by drought and subsidised cattle fodder for animals.

The court was hearing the PIL filed by Swaraj Abhiyan, a political movement started by former AAP leader Yogender Yadav, alleging that the Centre and states "have been highly negligent in performing their obligations, causing enormous damage to the lives of the people due to their inaction, which is in contravention of the rights guaranteed under Articles 21 and 14 of the Constitution of India".
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for Swaraj Abhiyan, said National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013 places obligation on the state to provide 5 kg of food grains to each person in the family per month.
"Unfortunately, most states have not yet implemented this. Except Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, the states have stuck to the previous Public Distribution System schemes that fall short of the NFSA obligations.

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Bhushan submitted that no government has provided any compensation or relief to the farmers for crop loss during this drought.
"They (government) cannot, for the existing system of crop loss is outdated, slow, arbitrary and full of corruption," he said.
He further stated that "besides, the rising price of daal (pulses) has made it unaffordable for the poor and there is a need to provide at least 2 kg of daal per family per month and egg for school going children through the Mid-Day Meal scheme and for children below 6-years through Integrated Child Development Services."
The petition submitted that the drought has led to severe decline in farm employment available to the rural poor.

"This is when MNREG Act can be of great help in generating employment. Therefore, it is the duty of the governments to provide additional employment during the drought period. However, the available evidence shows the contrary, that actually the number of person days of employment offered under MNREGS actually went down from 220 crore person days in a normal year 2013-14 to 166 crore person days in the drought year 2014-15 and is now down to merely 122 crore person days in 2015-16 so far," the petitioner said.
If we compare the drought affected states, the employment generation is down from 96 crore person days in 2013-14 to 67 crore person days in 2014-15 to just 48 crore in 2015-16 so far, it added.

The petition further said that the Centre should formulate uniform standard rules for the purpose of declaration of drought and fix fair, objective and transparent package for crop loss compensation as well as there should be a Integrated Water Policy to prepare for any future drought.