Chandigarh, December 22
Eight years after People Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) filed the right to food petition in the Supreme Court of India, starvation deaths remain a reality. In the last interim application filed before the apex court in this longest continuing mandamus on right to food anywhere in the world, the petitioners listed 5,957 fresh deaths due to hunger. They added that the state governments were still not ready to admit to starvation deaths.

“We have now petitioned the apex court for the implementation of WHO protocol on the determination of starvation deaths. A notice to states and UTs has been issued,” said Anup Srivastava, one of the original petitioners in the case, which argues that right to food is a fundamental right of all Indians. It demands that country's gigantic food stocks should be used without delay to prevent hunger and starvation.

“But starvation remains our biggest challenge”, Biraj Patnayak, member, Supreme Court Commission on Right to Food set up in 2003 to monitor the implementation of food security and employment schemes in India, today told The Tribune. He along with Srivastav and other right to food campaigners were today in Chandigarh on the invitation of Human Rights Law Network which contested PUCL’s original petition in the Supreme Court. They apprised NGO representatives of the court’s interim orders on the petition.

Biraj, whose job at the commission is to monitor all the nine schemes Supreme Court passed to guarantee people’s right to food, said that the court had directed these schemes be universalised.

“Midday Meal, ICDS, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and other such schemes are yet to be implemented in the right earnest. Punjab and Bihar are the worst in the implementation of Midday meal scheme,” said Patnayak, adding it took a letter from the Commission to the Prime Minister, who then prevailed upon the Punjab government to start the scheme. Punjab implemented it in 2005.

Even with ICDS, Punjab is not serious. “Punjab chief secretary has already faced a contempt of court notice in the matter,” Patnayak said, adding that the Supreme Court, acting on the commission’s reports, had summoned nine chief secretaries in December last. Monitoring of all the schemes under right to food petition continues, and the commission has submitted six reports to the apex court.

The latest under commission’s monitor is NREGA. Passed in September 2005, the scheme is yet to be implemented by most states. In Punjab it has taken off only in Hoshiarpur and Nawashahr, said Gurminder Singh, another right to food campaigner. He added that job cards under NREGA were yet to be issued to most in Punjab.

“People are complaining that the authorities have not mentioned dates of issue on the job cards that have been issued. Perhaps they want a way around NREGA’s provisions,” he said. The act directs guaranteed employment within 15 days of the issuance of job cards. In case of failure, the state government would be liable to pay the person concerned 40 per cent of the minimum wage - Rs 97 in case of Punjab.

The scheme otherwise gets 90 per cent central funding. And yet, it is limping.