BPL Home

Background of BPL survey

BPL Survey Questions and Analysis

BPL survey and LSS-Prayas effort

BPL updates

BPL dharna docs

BPL in other states (external links)

Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon and thus needs to be tackled by providing opportunities, creating entitlements and building capabilities. Undoubtedly the process of economic growth contributes to end by creating productive employment opportunities.

In order to ascertain the determinants of rural poverty, it is imperative to explain how poverty is measured. In estimating poverty levels, defining how poverty line is the first step. A poverty line demarcates the poor from the non-poor. It is identified as the minimum required consumption level of food clothing, shelter, transport, education and healthcare.

In India a task force constituted by planning commission in 1977 defined the poverty line for the country as per capita consumption expenditure level, which meet the average per capita daily calories requirement of 2,400 kcal in rural areas. Failing to meet this requirement and the expenditure we term them as BPL.

Crores of people in our country are in the trap of tremendous suffering due to lack of food and proper health facilities. Government supports this population of the country by forming BPL lists. But even in this list, instead of selecting the tribal, daily wage labourers, landless farmers etc., Zamindars and well to do people have been selected. This time a BPL list of 3 crores 86 lakhs 48 thousand and 6 hundred (3,86,48,600) people is being prepared in the whole country for a period of five years. Since fifty five years of being a Democratic Republic there have been uncountable instances of scams of thousands of crores of rupees by our politicians and beaurocrats. But the largest of all these scams till date is the recent scam of the BPL list.

The 2002 Survey

In the year 2002 a survey was conducted for preparing the BPL list wherein each family was asked thirteen questions and scores or numbers were allotted to each answer according to the replies. The families with small scores were selected for the list. But the Government's survey shows that the rich are consider as BPL and the poor people who deserve to be in this category (BPL) are eliminated from such category. Also the questions were totally inadequate and irrelevant to determine the real status of the families. For example, none of the questions dealt with incomes with in families to identify BPL families. Hence the survey has been designed to keep the majority of the families outside of BPL. The survey has favored comparatively well off and influential persons in the rural areas at the cost of the poor even in the selection of the deprived.

Here is a complete list of questions and an analysis of the survey and the situation in Rajasthan.

The Supreme Court Case against the Survey

In 2003, PUCL (People' s Union for Civil Liberties) filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in supreme court (SC) to review the BPL identification process as it excluded large number of needy families from the BPL list. According to PUCL, in Rajasthan alone, the number of people in BPL have been reduced by half from the previous survey ( http://www.indiatogether.org/2003/may/pov-scrtfrule. htm). However this case was withdrawn due to inordinate delays.

After the SC case

After the SC case was withdrawn, the government decided to complete the identification process between December 2005 and May 2006. The basis of this process is the provisional survey that was conducted in 2002. The process identified the government consists of an announcement of this survey list in the Ward (Block) and Gram (Village) panchayat (administrative unit). If the people did not agree with this survey, they can appeal with in one month of this announcement to the ward sabha. The ward sabha must conduct an inquiry with in 10 days of the appeal. If the appeal to the panchayat does not yield satisfactory results, then a written appeal could be made to the tehsildar (Officer of Tehsil, administrative unit with in a subdivision) and the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) . Finally the highest level of appeal can be made to the district collector.

Field Visit by a Supreme Court Advisory Team

Following the sustained mass awareness campaigns, over seven thousand appeals were filed within the stipulated time limit. But most of the appeals were rejected. Then the concerned peoples' organisations raised the issue at the highest level. A petition to the Secretary to State Government was submitted. The media also took notice of the issue at state and national level ( http://www.hindu. com/2006/04/30/stories/2006043015430500.htm ). At this time, the state Advisor to the Supreme Court Commissioners on food security took cognizance of the matter and wrote to the Principal Secretary, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj about his plan to hold an on-the-spot inquiry in the matter in the two districts. The State Advisor also visited Alwar, a relatively developed area, where no mass appeals have been filed. The field visits were undertaken by a six-member team consisting of Prof. Pradeep Bhargava, Mr. Ashok Khandelwal, Ms Manju Balana, Ms Julie Mathur, Mr Karni Singh and Mr. Manas Ranjan between May 4-20, 2006. During the visits the team met a large number of individuals working in various capacities and rural people in many villages and organised Focus Group Discussions. The report submitted by this team to the supreme court was an eye opener for everyone. The report clearly pointed out all the errors that were committed in the survey and how some of the questions in the survey are irrelevant and very poorly designed. The supreme court gave a stay order on the survey results. The case is in supreme court. The supreme court commissioner personally went with Khemraj ji to the houses of several families that were incorrectly categorized by the BPL survey. LSS felt that they have philosophically won because the error has been made public, the authorities have recognized the error. While the case is in court, Prayas/LSS thought that the survey would be stopped immediately and will be re-done to correct the errors.

Report by the SC advisory team.