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Why doorstep delivery of essentials, asks Andhra Pradesh high court to government
Acting on a petition filed by senior advocate K Srinivas on behalf of Andhra Pradesh Fair Price Shop Dealers’ Welfare Association, a high court bench headed by Justice Bhattu Devanand asked the state government to file a reply explaining the rationale behind its decision.
The Andhra Pradesh high court on Tuesday questioned the rationale behind the state government’s move to deliver essential commodities to consumers at their doorsteps instead of setting up fair price shops.
Acting on a petition filed by senior advocate K Srinivas on behalf of Andhra Pradesh Fair Price Shop Dealers’ Welfare Association, a high court bench headed by Justice Bhattu Devanand asked the state government to file a reply explaining the rationale behind its decision.
The judge posted the hearing for three weeks later on the request of state advocate general Subrahmanyam Sriram to enable the government to file the counter.
The high court wondered whether the consumers were not in a position to go to the fair price shops within a kilometre and spend half an hour standing in queue to fetch the essential commodities.
The court felt that the commission to be paid to the dealer of a fair price shop was much less than the expenditure incurred on the vehicles used for door-to-door delivery. “Is it not a waste of public money?” it asked.
The judge also sought to know whether the state government had taken permission from the Centre, which was providing funds for the public distribution system and maintenance of fair price shops.
The bench wanted the government to explain under what rules it had decided to make door-to-door delivery of commodities and how many people it had hired to do the same. “One can understand if the government uses mobile transport to carry essential commodities to the consumers in remote and hilly areas. There is no logic in doing the same for every village,” the judge said.
The petitioner brought to the notice of the high court that the consumers are forced to waste their precious time waiting for the vehicles to bring the commodities to their doorsteps and forgo their daily wages. “In all, 92,000 employees were hired with a monthly salary of ₹21,000 each to transport essential commodities to the doorstep of the consumers,” the petitioner said.
The Jagan government introduced the ration door delivery system in January 2021. The government announced that it had purchased 9,260 mobile vehicles worth ₹539 crores for distributing rice and other essential commodities to ration card holders at their doorstep.
The advocate general told the court that door-to-door delivery of essential commodities was a policy decision of the government, and the courts cannot interfere in administrative matters.
