Don't frame a scheme if you can't implement it: SC tells government

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday pulled up the central government for framing schemes and them not monitoring their implementation as it frowned at the leisurely pace at which the scheme for providing hostels facilities to SC/ST students was moving.

"It is a scheme framed by you. If you can't implement a scheme then don't frame a scheme," the social justice bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit told the Additional Solicitor General P.S.Narasimha as it gave the central government four months' time to survey the implementation of the Babu Jagjivan Ram Chhatrawas Yojana and file the report.

The apex court's response came as it was told that only 227 hostels of the 443 to be constructed under the scheme have come up so far.

The counsel for the petitioner, RSS-affiliated student outfit Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) told the court that the hostels that have been constructed were not being maintained.

"Mr. ASG you have to do something," the court told Narasimha as the ABVP said that the hostels that were already there were in a very bad conditions. "Not only the pace of construction is slow but there is no maintenance and hostels are in a dilapidated conditions."

The court told Narasimha that three things that needed to be done was to speed up the construction, maintain them and improve quality of life in hostels including living condition.

"This is your scheme and not ours", the court said declining Narasimha's plea for court's directions to state governments on the construction and maintenance of hostels under the scheme.

Giving the central government four months' time, the court directed the next hearing of the matter to be held July 10.