NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Central government to work with the states to provide data on starvation deaths, hunger and malnutrition across the country and questioned the Centre how it can be believed that there are no starvation deaths in India.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana asked the Central government to furnish latest data on starvation deaths and also frame a model scheme, for state and UT governments to implement, on community kitchens to address hunger and malnutrition.
The bench further remarked that several freebies are announced by political parties during polls and added that it does not want to comment during election time. The bench asked state governments to provide data on malnutrition, starvation deaths and other related issues, within two weeks.
Attorney General K K Venugopal told the bench that no state government has reported starvation deaths, but referred to a news report which has claimed one such case in Tamil Nadu, where doctors did not find food in the body of a five-year-old child in the post mortem.
In the backdrop of the Central government already funding 131 welfare schemes, the Attorney General cited scarcity of funds for the operation of the community kitchen scheme across the country, to address the problem of hunger and malnutrition. Venugopal said that state governments will have to organise funds for the scheme and also carry out the logistics.
Citing the AG’s submission on starvation deaths reported by states, the bench queried, “Can we afford to take that there is no starvation death in the country?” The Chief Justice then highlighted that states like Odisha, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Punjab and West Bengal run community kitchens, but are dependent on the Central government for funds and said, “We are not on starvation, or people dying of hunger. Our focus is on that people should not suffer from hunger.”