Poor used to get 15 paisa of Re 1, now get full Re 1 in their accounts: Centre

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday replayed ex-PM Rajiv Gandhi's "poor only got 15 paisa of Re 1 allocated by the government" statement in the Supreme Court to contrast it with Modi government's direct transfer of money to the accounts of poor under welfare schemes and said it helped ameliorate their hardships during Covid-19 pandemic situation.
This was in response to Congress leader and senior advocate Kapil Sibal's contention before a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R S Reddy and M R Shah that the government has not formulated a Covid-19 specific national plan mandated under Disaster Management Act and was operating the fight against the pandemic through ad hoc guidelines issued under a general national plan drawn up prior to the onset of the pandemic in India.
Sibal said that there were no specifications about minimum financial assistance to the poor, needy, destitute and migrant workers. "These are only ad hoc guidelines. Much more needs to be done. There are no national, state or district disaster management plans. If tomorrow Delhi is hit by a major earthquake, what is the national plan the government has? Minimum standards for provision of drinking water, sanitation, shelter, medical facility or financial assistance not specified in these guidelines," he complained.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta said, "Fortunately the government has passed that phase when the Centre used to release Re 1 but only 15 paisa used to reach the poor and needy. Now with the direct transfer of money to the accounts of the poor, farmers and migrant workers, they get the full money that is allotted to them."
Sibal accused Mehta of trying to politicise the issue. Just a little later, the situation reversed and Mehta was seen accusing advocate Dushyant Dave of politicising and sensationalising the issue by drawing a comparison between Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, donations to which are under government lens, and PM Cares Fund.
Mehta said the existing National Plan under Disaster Management Act takes a comprehensive note of biological disasters and under this national plan several Covid-19 guidelines have been issued to tackle the pandemic situation in different states.
Mehta informed the court that it would have been a futile exercise to prepare a 'one size fits all' National Plan given the dynamic nature of pandemic and its varying effects in different states.
He said that the ministry of health and family welfare, being the nodal ministry under DM Act, had issued several national plans - 'Cluster Containment Plan for Covid-19' on March 2 and updated it on May 16; Model Micro-Plan for containing local outbreak of Covid-19 to enable states to plan further action on the field keeping in mind emerging situations; and 'Containment Plan for large outbreaks of Covid-19' issued on April 4 and updated on May 16.