The Supreme Court has suggested doing away with fair price shops for food grains distribution under Public Distribution System. Instead, the court asked the government to explore a mechanism to put in place the recommendations of the National Food Security Bill till it becomes a law. The court said it is concerned with the effectiveness of the public distribution system.

A bench comprising justices T S Thakur and Fakkir M Kalifulla was of the view that no one system of PDS can be perfect. Therefore, it should be left to the states to ideally run it by state-level corporations, panchayati raj institutions, cooperatives and registered women's self-help groups as recommended in the Justice D P Wadhwa Committee report.

The bench, which accepted the findings of the committee on the ills prevalent in the present PDS, said there was a need to switch over from private shops where there have been large-scale pilferage as the food grains are not reaching the real beneficiaries.

Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati told the court that theough the Food Security Bill is pending in Parliament, its provisions can be implemented by way of an executive order in the intervening period. He told the bench the implementation of the provisions of the bill ewill cost an additional central financial burden of around 23,000 crore rupees on account of food subsidy.