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Why can't surplus grain be sold to poor, asks Supreme Court

New Delhi(11/5/11): The Supreme Court Tuesday asked the central government, which admitted to shortcomings in the public distribution system, why it could not give the surplus food grain that it couldn't store to hungry people at subsidised rates.

"Why can't you give it at subsidised rates to the hungry populace. You have it.

You can't store it. You can't destroy it. Give it to the people who need it,

" said the apex court bench of Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice Deepak Verma.

"What you (the central government) have done is not adequate. 

At least the grains you can't store, you give them (to the hungry)," said the court,

when its attention was drawn to a report by a news channel that had shown the

 stored food grains being burnt in Punjab after becoming unfit for consumption.

As the court vented its ire over the inadequacy of action on the central government's

part, the government said it has decided to make further additional allocation of 

50 lakh tones of rice and wheat to all the states and union territories. The allocation

would start in two weeks' time.

Appearing for the petitioner, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), senior

counsel Colin Gonsalves said: "The food that can't be stored, let it be stored in

the stomach of hungry." He told the court that nutritional level in India was

less than that of Bangladesh.