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Ration supply to homeless people fixed, SC told by Aanchal Bansal, Krishnadas Rajagopal


Homeless people in Delhi will not have to go hungry anymore.

Now, under the Antyodya Anna Yojana (AAY), a homeless household in the Capital will be supplied with 25 kg of wheat, 10 kg of rice, 6 kg of sugar and 22 litres of kerosene oil once it gets an AAY card.

The AAY scheme, launched in 2000, intends to provide special food-based assistance to destitute households that are given a special ration card, and are entitled to special grain quotas at highly subsidised prices.

Under the scheme, homeless individuals, who are not part of a household, will get 10 kg of wheat, 5 kg of rice and 10 litres of kerosene oil per person each month at Below Poverty Line (BPL) rates.

This is part of an official communication from the Office of the Commissioner (Food, Supplies and Consumer Affairs) to Additional Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran.

The letter was produced before a Supreme Court Division Bench led by Justice Dalveer Bhandari on Tuesday in compliance to court orders to implement the AAY scheme for the homeless people, too. The state government was represented by advocate Wasim Qadri.

The Bench subsequently recorded the contents of the letter dated March 11, 2010 in its written order on Tuesday.

The letter, drafted by Joint Commissioner R T L

D’Souza, informs that arrangements have been made to distribute the supplies among 14,850 homeless people with effect from March this year.

The ASG Parasaran submitted that two phases of a survey to identify homeless people in Delhi is already over.

Recording Parasaran’s submissions, the court said in its order that “the Chief Secretary had a meeting on January 20, 2010 and directed the survey to be completed by May 21 this year, so that the AAY cards can be issued for homeless people”.

“Regarding grant of AAY cards to homeless instead of BPL cards, there is a survey being carried out by Mission Convergence (Samajik Suvidha Sangam) for identifying vulnerable and most vulnerable households,” the ASG quoted from the letter.

“Provision for supply of special food-based assistance of 14,850 cardholders has also been made with effect from March 2010 and Samya NGO has been informed of this. There is another NGO — Chintan — through whom 437 homeless cards have been distributed after taking their biometric thumb impression,” said Parasaran reading from the letter.

The communication is in reply to a letter from the ASG addressed to Chief Secretary, Delhi government, regarding instructions by the Supreme Court to “evolve proper guidelines” on issues like AAY cards to homeless, monitoring of night shelters and residential schools for streetchildren.

“In connection with grant of AAY status to homeless, it is submitted that for a BPL or AAY household, the quantity of SFA to be supplied is same — 25 kg of wheat, 10 kg of rice, 06 kg of sugar and 22 litres of kerosene oil if not a gas user,” the ASG read out from the letter.

The rate of rice and wheat is less for AAY cardholder as compared to the BPL category, though the rates of sugar and kerosene oil will be the “same”.

Court On Myanmar refugees

The Delhi government has also decided to conduct a survey to ascertain the number of refugees of Burmese origin in the city.

As per the letter, refugees from Myanmar will be surveyed for issuing AAY cards and a separate report will be submitted on the people found eligible so that they could also be considered for issue of cards. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, there are about 3,000 refugees of Burmese origin, mostly settled in West Delhi areas like Janakpuri and Vikaspuri.

Officials said the government has decided to initiate a survey and has not committed to providing any services under the Public Distribution System.

Food and Supplies Commissioner Jayshree Raghuraman said, “This is a direction from the Centre as part of a Public Interest Litigation filed in Supreme Court.”