Blasting the Congress leaders for taking the poor and vulnerable communities for a ride and humiliating them by defining the poor with an absurd criterion, the Delhi Bharatiya Janata party today said the Congress has not only humiliated the poor by setting up ridiculous norms for defining poor and then to add insult to their injury it has announced a Food Security Scheme which is non-implementable.
In fact, the rampant corruption and inefficiency has led to an increase in the number of poor in Delhi giving it another dubious distinction after being tagged as the “Rape capital” and the “Most polluted city” under Congress government’s rule.
Addressing a press conference, the Delhi BJP President Shri Vijay Goel said, “As per Delhi government’s own official statistics, the number of people below poverty line have doubled in Delhi i.e. 11.49 lakhs in 1999-2000 to 23.3 lakhs by 2009-10 which reveals the truth behind façade.”
As per the Delhi government’s official statistics provided for year 2009-10, Around 23.3 lakhs or 14.2 per cent of the population is below poverty line. In 2004-5, BPL population in Delhi was 19.4 lakhs and in 1999-2000 it was just 11.49 lakhs or 8 percent. The figures show that the people BPL are on continuous rise and this is result of anti-people policies of Congress government.
The BJP announced that it will hold demonstrations at the residences of all those Congress leaders who are making offensive statements against the poor by saying that the poor can buy a meal at Rs 5 in Delhi.
“A quick analysis done by the BJP shows that the way Planning Commission headed by the Prime Minister himself has defined the poverty line is ridiculous and on top of it the Congress leaders have the cheek to say that in Delhi, one can get food at Rs 5.”
The Congress government in Delhi is running a Jan Aahar Scheme in which cheap cooked food is provided not for Rs. 5 or Rs 12 but for Rs. 15. And even this becomes possible only after a subsidy of Rs. 10 on every meal. Isn’t that an enough proof that figures quoted by Congress leaders to define the poor are ridiculous.
Exposing the classic case of Congress doublespeak, Shri Goel said, “In fact the Tendulkar methodology under which the poverty line has been defined at around Rs. 32 for the poor in the urban areas and around RS 27 in rural areas has been rejected by the Planning Commission experts itself. Former RBI governor and the head of PM’s Economic Advisory Council Shri C. Rangarajan has already been entrusted with the task of reviewing this unrealistic and flawed criteria on the basis of which a fake reduction in poverty data is projected.
The new definition of poverty line which is more realistic was expected to come in 2014 but with assembly elections for four states including Delhi coming up, Congress was in such tearing hurry that it used the flawed Tendulkar methodology.”
Shri Goel said, after ridiculing the poor, the Congress has now come up with another “political fraud”. “The Food Security Scheme proposed to start from 20 August is nothing but a political gimmick. Neither the UPA government at the Centre, nor the Congress government in Delhi is committed to implement this scheme. These announcements are made to befool people. This scheme will remain on paper like many other earlier schemes announced by the Congress government such as Dilli Annashree Yojana”
In fact, the Supreme Court had directed the Centre to distribute to the poor those food grains which were getting rotten in FCI godowns three years ago but the UPA government including the Prime Minister himself did not allow this to happen despite strong observations from the apex court.
And now prior to assembly and general elections, Congress is attempting this new political stunt through a food security scheme which has not been allocated required money. It has to be implemented through PDS which is in shambles. In fact, the PDS in Delhi has been termed as the second most corrupt by Transparency international. Justice Wadhwa Committee had a similar opinion as it found Delhi PDS overflowing with corruption and inefficiency.
Why Food Security Scheme Cannot be implemented in Delhi ?
Centre hardly allocated any resources:
In December 2012, an expert group was set up at the instance of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) in UPA government to look into financial implications of the food security bill. . It came out with a report titled “National Food Security Bill: Challenges and Options’. The report clearly says that the financial cost of the Food Security Bill stands at Rs 6.82 lakh crore over the next three years– Rs 2.41 lakh crore in the first year; Rs 2.23 lakh crore in the second year and Rs 2.17 lakh crore in the third year. This is more than two and a half times the provision in the current fiscal year’s union budget. . Against this, the Budget provides just Rs 90,000 crore for food subsidy and Rs 2,250 crore for the National Food Security Mission. So actually there is no money to implement this scheme!
The same report also points out that the proposed "Food Security Act" could be ineffective as there are huge leakages in the Public Distribution system. The research report exposes the shocking leakage under the present Targeted Public Distribution (TPD) system. It brings out that atleast 40 per cent of the foodgrains meant for poor does not reach them through PDS.
Now let us take a look at the PDS in Delhi which is meant to implement this scheme but which infact is no position to do so-
- Agencies like Transparency International have termed Delhi PDS as the second most corrupt in the country.
- Justice Wadhwa Committee found that there are huge gaps leading to rampant pilferage from Delhi PDS.
- There are around 2.1 lakh ration cards for BPL families in the city which can cover 8-10 lakh population while their actual numbers according to Delhi govt’s own stats is more than 23 lakh. They will not get any benefit as in absence of ration card they have not been able to get Aadhar card also to which this scheme is linked.
- A large number of APL families proposed to be covered under this scheme have neither ration card not Aadhar card.
- More than 15.85 lakh APL (Above Poverty Line – Unstamped) card holders in the city do not get subsidized food items.
- Majority of 11.53 lakh Stamped APL card holders have the same complaint ( An APL card holder is eligible for 25 kg wheat and 10 kg rice per month)·
- Only 1.01 lakh Antodaya Ann Yojana (AAY) families were identified against the targeted number of 1.57 lakh AAY families, resulting in depriving 56,000 families of the benefits of the scheme. Funds available for beneficiaries remained unused as well.
- Only 72 beneficiaries so far in Annapurna Yojana.
- Less than 8000 beneficiaries in Dilli Annashree Yojana despite tall claims of more than one lakh beneficiaries by Congress government.
- Out of 1100 posts in Food and Civil Supplies more than half are lying vacant.
- PSUs like Delhi State Civil Supplies Corporation busy in selling liquor through its liquor shops rather than supplying affordable items to –Delhi residents.
- There are only 2480 FPS in Delhi to serve more than 33 lakh ration card holders.
- Major pilferages are reported to exist in the PDS in Delhi but no corrective action has been taken so it is very likey that the foodgrains meant for the poor will be squandered away.
- There is no clarity about overlapping of existing schemes such as Dilli Annashree, Anyodya and Annapurna with the Food Security programme.
