New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday expressed its disappointment over the Centre's inability in developing a national database that would record the unorganised workers and observed that it cannot be left to bureaucrats as they have not done anything since October last year when the project was sanctioned. The Centre told the top court that nearly four months more will be required to develop the software to which the court said that they are not doing a nationwide survey, it's just a database and it should not be needing that much time.
The bench comprising of Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice MR Shah was hearing a suo moto case on miseries and problems of migrants during the pandemic. The court questioned the Centre on what has it been doing to reach the workers who do not have ration cards and if the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan scheme can be temporarily extended to those who do not have ration cards as states have no scheme for unorganised migrants.
Read:| SC orders completion of common national database for workers at the earliest
The Centre had told the apex court that it is for the states to have schemes for those who have no ration card and the Centre has already allocated food grains to them but the scheme will have to be extended by the state. The Centre also informed the court that Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Assam and West Bengal did not implement the 'one nation one card' scheme. Delhi said that it had implemented and West Bengal said that it has an Adhaar seeding issue.
Read:| Process of registration of migrant workers needs to be expedited: SC
The court directed West Bengal to immediately implement the 'one nation one ration card' scheme and no excuse can be considered for that. Judgement on the matter has been reserved by the court.
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