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BPL criteria to be reviewed

Special Correspondent

Suresh Tendulkar to head committee

AIDWA draws attention to flaws in enumeration
Legal exclusion of the poor from system, assault on right to food security

NEW DELHI: The Planning Commission has set up a committee, headed by Suresh Tendulkar, to re-examine the criteria for BPL estimation, which has excluded a large number of poor people including women from the Public Distribution System.

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia conveyed this information to a delegation of the All-India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), which drew his attention to the grave flaws in the enumeration of below the poverty line families, both at the conceptual stage and in the administrative mechanism which proved its total unworkability.

Eligibility criterion aggravated situation

The linkages to this policy directive with the 13-point eligibility criterion being used by the Rural Development Ministry further aggravated the situation, the delegation said.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, AIDWA general secretary Sudha Sundararaman said the team demanded a return to the universal PDS and strengthening of the system in the context of the unprecedented price rise.

Even tribals excluded

She said the Commission’s poverty estimates, according to which 27.5 per cent of the population was below the poverty line, did not correspond to the abysmal figures for child malnutrition and anaemia as brought out by the latest National Health and Family Survey.

Thanks to the faulty criteria, even marginalised sections such as tribals were denied the benefit of the BPL card, because they owned some land, and the Scheduled Castes families which sent their school to children.

Thus the legal exclusion of the poor from the system was a major assault on their right to food security.

Moreover, as States were compelled to impose these narrow criteria in a situation of gross poverty, administrative jugglery and ad hocism were being resorted to.

A huge gap

There existed a huge gap among the number of the BPL prescribed by the Ministry, the number announced by the State government and the actual figures which in some States constituted up to 70 per cent of the population.

Exploitation

The well-off exploited the weaknesses and acquired the card, whereas the truly eligible were unable to get it, Ms. Sundararaman said.

The AIDWA asked the Commission to extend and strengthen the PDS system, with supply of at least 14 essential commodities at an affordable price. This would also check speculative trading.

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