The Supreme Court today expressed concern over the spiralling prices of food items due to the failure of the monsoon, hitting the common man.
It asked the Centre and the state governments to extend all possible financial, administrative and technical help to an expert government committee to recommend measures to overcome water crisis in the country.
"A terrible situation has arisen due to the failure of monsoon in the country. The prices of common man's food like dal are going up. The work should be done in the spirit of patriotic duty," a Bench comprising Justice Markandeya Katju and A K Ganguly observed.
The Bench was hearing a PIL relating to the water crisis in the country.It also perused the report submitted by committee headed by Science and Technology Secretary T Ramasamy.
The Centre had told the court yesterday that it was exploring utilisation of sea water as one of the alternative means for meeting acute water crisis that has gripped the country in recent years.
To overcome these problems and chalk out a long-term solution, a strategy christened 'WAR for Water" (winning, augmentation and renovation for water) has been formulated with a 23-member technical experts committee headed by Ramasami as chairperson, the Centre said in an affidavit filed through the Department of Science and Technology.
Under "WAR", problems associated with water like availability, quality, indiscriminate use, renovation for recycles, augmentation of quality water from available and accessible sources would be taken up, it said.
The affidavit has been filed in response to an April 28 direction of the apex court on the PIL filed by an advocate M K Balakrishnan.
