The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed State Governments to follow the Standard Operation Procedure formulated by National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and to commence distribution of dry ration to sex workers.

Further, the States have also been directed to le compliance reports pertaining to the implementation of schemes for the distribution of ration. Additionally, in order to maintain the condentiality and privacy of the sex workers, the States have been directed to follow the framework set up by NACO.

A Bench headed by Justice L. Nageswara Rao presided over the matter and decided to pass a general direction in today’s proceedings and then observe what the States had to respond.

The general directions were passed during the hearing of a plea highlighting the distress faced by sex workers on account of the ongoing pandemic in the proceedings of Budhadev Karmaskar v. State of West Bengal & Ors., wherein a panel had been set up to improve the living conditions of the community.

In the previous hearing, the Supreme Court had directed the State Governments to provide dry rations for identied sex workers by NACO and State Governments sans insistence of identity proof.

Senior Advocate Anand Grover then sought to make a few submissions before the Court. He stated that some States were not taking the data which had been mapped by NACO and further, there was no data provided as to how many sex workers had been registered by NACO and how many were being given ration.  He provided the example of Jharkhand and some States which had submitted that they had no sex workers.

Grover further highlighted the issue of confidentiality of sex workers and informed the Court that NACO had understood that the same had to be preserved. Accordingly, the modalities had been worked out. There was further another issue pertaining to the recording of sex workers who are less than 40 years old.

The Supreme Court recorded the submissions and provided a general direction to all States, noting that further directions would be given on the basis of the response of the States