Identifying BPL families key to poverty alleviation

Many committees have been formed and many surveys carried out in our country from time to time, but no concrete result has been arrived at for determining ‘Income poverty’

On July 3, 2015, the Government of India released the provisional data of the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 for the rural India. As per the data, total households in the country (rural plus urban) were 24.39 crore of which 17.91 crore households (73.4%) were living in the rural areas.

Based on 14 parameters of well-being, many households were identified and subsequently excluded and thus 7.05 Crore (39.39%) households were in the list. Further, as per the survey, more than 90 per cent of the rural households’ main earning member’s income was less than Rs 10,000 a month.

Now, the question arises as to how this can be arrived at when scores of rural households are in subsistence stage till today. A few months back I was in Bankura district of West Bengal and while carrying out a research study observed that many tribal people were getting minimum calories of food but were unable to divulge their actual income as no one maintained the record.

Even in interior tribal villages of North-East, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, UP, MP, Rajasthan, Northern districts of West Bengal, Odisha etc., the same was the picture, as observed by me. It is pertinent to mention that, based on the calorie concept poverty first introduced in the world by Lord John Boyd Orr (1880-1971), the first Director General of FAO, where he introduced the link between low income and nutritional deprivation.

In our country the Calorie concept was adopted to determine poverty (an adult living in rural areas requires 2,400 calorie of food value per day and same in the urban areas is 2,100) which subsequently has been converted to income criterion. Before independence, Dadabhai Naoroji formulated the poverty line based on consumer expenditure and he suggested subsistence diet for determining poverty.

Subsequently in 1938, the National Planning Committee (NPC) estimated a poverty line. In 1944, the authors of the ‘Bombay Plan’ namely, Thakurdas and others, suggested a poverty line. After independence in 1962, the Planning Commission initiated to work out poverty by constituting a working group.

Based on the National Sample Survey (NSS) data of 1960-61, VM Dandekar and N Rath made an attempt to assess poverty in India in 1971. Again the Planning Commission in 1979, under the Chairmanship of Y K Alagh, constituted a committee to determine poverty line.

Subsequently, we find some more committees were constituted in this regard such as Lakdawala Committee (1993), Tendulkar Committee (constituted in 2005 submitted its Report in 2009), Rangarajan Committee, etc. In the meantime, the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, carried out a survey in 2002 to identify the Below Poverty Line (BPL) families based on 13 parameters.

Prior to that, in 1992 and 1997 at the behest of the Ministry of Rural Development, BPL surveys were conducted. The Ministry of Rural Development constituted an expert group under the chairmanship of N C Saxena in 2009 to recommend a more suitable methodology for conducting the BPL census with simple, transparent, and objectively measurable indicators.

Now the latest is Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC). Thus, one can find many Committees were formed and many Surveys were carried out in our country time to time but no concrete result was observed for determining of ‘Income poverty’.

I suggest, based on PRA exercise, BPL families can be identified by taking into confidence all the rural people vis-à-vis considering some indicators like kuchcha house, presence of child labour in the family, earning as agricultural and/or non-agricultural labour, dependency on jhum cultivation, no assets like TV, refrigerator, mobile phone, etc. and cooking through fire wood, fetching water from other place etc, may be considered.

If we cannot identify right BPL families and provide assistance to them, then I feel we have been doing injustice to us only. I still remember many poor persons above the age of 60, 70, 80 and 90 years working in MGNREGS projects to eke out their livelihood. (The writer is an Associate Professor at NIRD &PR (Govt. of India), Hyderabad)

By Dr Shankar Chatterjee