India is an agricultural country, which produces and exports large amounts of food-grains. The Green Revolution made India self sufficient in terms of food-grains long time back, yet there are umpteen numbers of people who go to sleep empty belly. Various reports point out to this fact, yet no concrete decision has been taken. Destitution and misery are driving the poor of this country to suicides and there are myriad numbers of other people who do not even have to take such extreme steps, as starvation does the job for them.
Recently the Supreme Court of India said no one should die of starvation and asked all the states to specify as to how much food grains under the Public Distribution System is required to meet the requirement. A bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma told the Centre that the decision of the committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge, Justice D P Wadhwa, would be binding on the government. The bench also said that corruption and stealing has become common in the PDS, which needs to be contained and computerising the whole system might do the job.
The SC decision is indeed commendable, but we cannot turn a blind eye and behave naively to the fact that implementation is the area which is the biggest challenge. We cannot remain merry by the mere decision of the Supreme Court, instead we need to make sure that distribution takes place wisely and reaches the needy. There is no dearth of laws, followed by sections and sub-sections in our Constitution, yet we have miserably failed to deliver the most basic right of individuals during the past 64 years, which is right to food. Mere acknowledging the problem will not work; what is required is concrete action.
Recently, a Madrasa teacher in Bahadurganj area of UP committed suicide by consuming acid. He died while being taken to hospital. Ikramul Haq used to teach science at the Madrasa. Ikram had been waiting for salary for the past three years. Utter destitution, misery and burden of loans taken during the past years, drove him to take this extreme step, leaving behind his wife and two children.
The suicide, which has shaken the whole area, has once again pointed out to the poor implementation of the schemes and laws of the government. Along with Ikram, there are around 14,028 more Madrasa teachers who have not received their salaries for months together.
Under the scheme to provide science education in Madrasas, thousands of science teachers were appointed to teach modern education, at the fixed salary of Rs. 6000 a month. But most of the Madrasa teachers are still waiting for the remunerations of the jobs they have been doing for the past three years. The Madrasa teachers have claimed that this is the biggest scam that has taken place.
So by considering the SC’s decision on food-grain distribution and by seeing the preposterous implementation of other schemes of the government, one can only hope that perhaps this order under PDS will not join the list of other failed schemes of the government and will probably save people from dying out of starvation.