‘No food relief for those without ration cards during lockdown inhuman’: DRRAA asks Delhi CM to honour promise

Delhi Rozi Roti Adhikar Abhiyan (DRRAA) has written to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal regarding non-distribution of ration to people without ration cards despite directions of the Supreme Court and an announcement made by the Delhi government on May 18.

“Distress among the working poor and marginalised communities is alarmingly high as Delhi is now in the sixth week of the lockdown.

The continuous extensions of the lockdown with no food relief for those without ration cards is inhuman. It is forcing people to rely on private charities and neighbours for food and in many places people are being forced to beg for food,” it said.

“In a press conference on May 18, you had announced that Delhi government will distribute rations to people without ration cards. This was in recognition of the ground reality that there are many people who need state assistance for food security but do not possess ration cards as the fixed quota for Delhi under the National Food Security Act has been exhausted and there is no separate state run PDS Scheme. There was an assurance that the scheme will be operationalised within two to four days. It has now been a week since that announcement and the scheme is still not in place,” the letter says.

“This delay is forcing people to rely on private charities and neighbours for food and in many places people are being forced to beg for food. The continuous extensions of the lockdown with no food relief for those without ration cards is inhuman. It is an indication of the desperate situation people are in that the joint food relief initiative which DRRAA and other groups are part of, has received SOS requests for ration from 1.50 lakh people across Delhi. Most of these are people without ration cards,” it added.

“Furthermore, it is very concerning that in the absence of any official details of the scheme or even the date by when this scheme will be announced, a lot of misinformation is circulating in the public domain. Links to the e-coupon application website which was in operation last year are being circulated claiming that people can start applying there, even though there is no confirmation that the same system will be adopted this year,” it read.

“At a time of crisis, this kind of unconfirmed information further intensifies the distress among people and forces them to waste time and resources on trying to procure rations using these leads. It is also pertinent to highlight that on May 13, 2021, the Supreme Court had directed the Union of India and governments of Delhi, UP and Haryana to provide dry rations to all migrant workers in Delhi NCR (Suo Motu 6/2020). The SC, recognising that many migrant workers may not possess identity proof, had directed that ration be given on the basis of self-certification to those without documents,” the letter said.

“However, to our knowledge, till date the Delhi government has not implemented the directions. On May 24, the SC extended this relief to all the states. We are constrained to note that despite multiple representations sent to the Delhi government, we have not received any response other than the perfunctory forwarding of the letter for ‘appropriate necessary action’.

The letter was signed by Anjali Bhardwaj, Amrita Johri, Dipa Sinha, Annie Raja, Aakanksha Badkur, Shakeel, Ashok Kumar, Anwar, Kailash Bhatt, Snehlata, Aditi Dewedi, Neelesh, Raj Shekhar, Rajender Kumar, Shruti, Ravinder Kumar, Rushda, Koninika Ray, Prakash, Amrita, Nandini Nayak, Gufran Alam, Phillip C. Phillip, Sunita Rani, Shreya Sen, Sagarika Ghatak, Amar Bhandari and Aysha.