DELHI’S STATEMENTS IN TOP COURT ‘MISLEADING’: CENTRE

NEW DELHI: Setting the stage for yet another face-off with the Delhi government, the Centre has termed as “misleading” the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government’s statement before the Supreme Court last week in which it said it has commenced implementing the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme.

The ONORC scheme helps beneficiaries, especially migrant workers to avail of subsidised food commodities anywhere in India and is currently operational in 24 states and eight Union territories.

Apart from Delhi, the Centre has said, West Bengal, Assam and Chhattisgarh are yet to make the scheme functional.

The Centre criticised the Delhi government for depriving scores of interstate migrants present in Delhi of their quota of subsidised foodgrains under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in the absence of full implementation of ONORC. In Delhi, nearly 7.2 million people are eligible for subsidised food under various schemes.

In written submissions filed before the top court on Monday, the Union government underlined that implementing the ONORC scheme only in one circle of Delhi with a handful of transactions doesn’t make it really functional.

“The claim of GNCTD regarding launch of ONORC plan in NCT of Delhi is misleading, as they claim to have implemented it only in circle 63 Seemapuri. Only a handful of transactions conducted in (a) single circle with about 42 epos (electronic point of sale) machines cannot be considered as implementation of ONORC,” the Centre submitted in writing.

Delhi government spokespersons refused to comment on the matter.

The Centre said that unless the national portability transactions were rolled out formally in all the fair price shops of all circles of Delhi, in which more than 2,000 epos machines have been supplied and are waiting for operation, it could not be considered as implementation of the scheme.