The deaths of 47 Sahariya tribals due to hunger during the 2001 drought had triggered a Public Interest Litigation by the People Union for Civil Liberties in the Supreme Court. That case went on to become the basis for civil society's demand for the right to food. “The biggest concern with respect to the draft National Food Security Bill pertains to PDS entitlements. Classifying households into APL-BPL has been a disaster in both 1997 and 2002, half of the poor did not get BPL cards,” says Reetika Khera, economist and author of a recent study on PDS. She points out that “general” and “priority” households under the proposed Act will boil down to continuing the same categories with new names.
