Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi stokes controversy with Swachh rider for free rice

Lt. Governor Kiran Bedi stirred a hornet’s nest on Saturday by issuing a direction to withhold distribution of free rice to villages that failed to implement the Swachch Bharat mission.

Prompted by “anguish” at the poor sanitation conditions she came across during a weekend inspection of Mannadipet village, Ms. Bedi also set a May 31 deadline for villages to get their act together on the rural sanitation and hygiene fronts to continue so as to receive the free rice rations.

In a letter to Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy, Ms. Bedi argued that making access to free rice contingent on villages becoming Open Defecation Free and maintaining cleanliness would ensure that the local communities shouldered the onus of turning the Centrally-driven Swachh Bharat Grameen mission into a reality.

“In all the rural visits, the community leaders have been vociferous and proactive in raising various demands on behalf of the people. However, the same enthusiasm and impatience was not shown by them to actively and earnestly participate in Swachh campaigns. It is imperative for the local community to shoulder the onus, for the swachh bharat grameen, to become a reality.

As such, in order to inculcate a sense of responsibility amongst the local community, we require to cast a duty upon the local community for maintenance of their localities clean and healthy. The rice distribution shall therefore be made conditional to the certification that the village is open defecation free and free of strewn garbage and plastics. Accordingly, I have issued directions to the Director of Civil Supplies. A notice to the villages be given for a period of four weeks till May 31 2018 to make the villages clean,” Ms. Bedi wrote to the Chief Minister.

Ms. Bedi proposed that the certification that the villages are clean and free of strewn garbage would be given jointly by the Member of Legislative Assembly of the constituency and the Commissioner of the Commune Panchayat concerned, only after which the distribution (of free rice) would be made.

Ms. Bedi's decision, meanwhile, has attracted flak from across the political spectrum. The Congress, AIADMK and the CPI(M) in Puducherry have lambasted the move even as a barrage a criticism erupted on social media over the attempt to link PDS to Swachch Bharat mission performance.