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Prayas/LSS and BPL Struggle in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan |
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BPL Survey Questions and Analysis BPL survey and LSS-Prayas effort |
In order to deepen its understanding of the people about the BPL scenario, Prayas decided to visit the various village of Bhadesar Tehsil and to find out whether Government's survey on BPL has truly conducted justly. Talking to various people of the village and through observation, it is found out that the Government's survey on BPL has not conducted properly. And it is totally unjust conducted against the poor. While enquiring about the survey to Gram Panchayat and to the Authority person, they failed to give the information. But after much complaint the Gram Panchayat decided to give the copy of the survey.
Going through the survey conducted by the Government's authority, we find lots of contradiction with the survey conducted and the actual condition of people living in the village. When such a injustice was found out, Prayas took up the BPL selection process in Chittorgarh district of Rajasthan as a case study. A survey was carried out in the 9 tehsils- Bhadesar, Nimbhaheda, Chittorgarh, Arnod, Pratapgarh, Begun, Kapasan, Doongla and Bari Sadri of district. It indicated that the poor families were credited with more points, decided on the basis of the land holdings, food availability, clothes, sanitation facilities and worldly possessions, to mention a few of them, then their comparatively well off neighbors . Looking back again carefully we find that the zamindar of the village gets 9 points in the score sheet while the landless Dalit get 20 points. Those who are awarded 15 points do not stand much chance to get into the BPL list.
Many poor people did appeal with the help of the activists and other organisations, but which the local authorities initially rejected, before they were taken up following a directive from Jaipur. Moreover 'Ward sabha' meetings did not take place anywhere. Even though the ward sabha meeting was held but without much attendance. The names in the list were read out at gram sabhas but the authorities are in no mood to make corrections or include the names of the left out.
1. Neither the scores of the thirteen question survey were revealed in the villages nor their copies provided even on demand. 2. Ward meetings were held only on papers. Even if held at a few places the meetings went useless as none of the appeals of the poor was entertained. People were only allowed to give in their names in case they were left out in the survey. 3. It was told by the Development Officers and the Chief Executive, Zila Parishad that Gram Sabha cannot make any change in the scores once provided through the survey; it only holds power to add on those people to the list who were somehow left out in the survey. 4. The initial appeal of thousands of poor families was relentlessly rejected by the officers, tehsildars and the block officers without even giving an ear. Thus due to lack of any investigation by the responsible authorities, these poor families had to live with injustice and numerous troubles in life. 5. So that the negligence and selfish deeds of the administration involved in the BPL selection is not exposed to the people, the authorities tried to misguide the people by hiding their scores and doing everything in a hidden and closed manner.
Appeal Program on 22nd February, 2006: Professor. Pradeep Bhargav, a development researcher, convened a meeting on the matter of BPL (Below Poverty Line). The meeting was between various local social organizations and the government. Officials from the center and state governments were also present. The following were discussed in the meeting - • Why the poor were given higher grades, which resulted in scores of families
being left out of the BPL category. After the objections, Officials promised to resolve these issues if the local organizations submit these complaints in writing. On 23rd February, 856 people representing 126 villages organized a dharna in front of the collector's office. They submitted the above complaints in writing. The collector suggested that they should appeal against the inaccuracies in the BPL survey. Tehsildar/SDM refused to entertain the group submissions by the local organizations, charging them for inciting people against the govt. Then LSS approached rural development ministry in Jaipur and succeeded in getting an ordinance from the ministry to accept group appeals. From 6th to 12 March, the local groups conducted interviews with people from – Dungla, Nimbheda, Badesar, Chittorgarh, Aarnodh, Pratapgarh, Beghu, Badisadhi, kapaasan – blocks.
After the interviews 7658 total appeals were filed to the Tehsildaar and SDM. However, there was very negative response from the local authorities. Kapaasan, SDM: The appeals were rejected on the accusation that prayas members forged the appeals and the survey forms A & B have not been attached. In Mungana village, the survey listed 182 families, where as 186 complaints were received. Nimbhahoda, SDM: On 7th April, he called all the petitioners for a hearing and asked them to get a copy of the land deed and an affidavit of poverty. No inquiry and hearing took place. Arnaud, Tehsildar: He refused to conduct the inquiry. He called for the hearing and told them that the numbers were right and demanded to take back the appeal. Asavara, Tehsildar: The hearing was announced only in papers and were told to Sarpanchs. The people did not come to the hearing as they did not know about it. LSS representatives visited the hearing and were told that all the data was correct. In the hearing, all the Tehsildar did was to take the original survey paper and recounted the numbers. There was no inquiry as to the validity of the answers to different questions. Badesar, Tehsildar: In Asavara, LSS found out the subsequent hearings, and brought several families to the hearing. But the tehsildar did not conduct an inquiry and told that the numbers were right. On April 16th, representatives from LSS, Prayas and Jan Morcha met to discuss the BPL issue and decided to conduct a dharna in Chittorgorh to highlight the inadequacies of BPL survey and its exclusion of those that need these services. Demands for the Dharna in May 2006:
1. The lists of the thirteen question scores should be revealed in each and every village and their copies must be provided on demand.
2. Ward meetings and Gram Sabhas should be reconducted and strict efforts should be made to honestly include the actual poor and needy in the BPL list. 3. Any officer causing any kind of negligence or interruption in the process must be strictly dealt with and disciplinary action must be taken against him so that the poor can get enough protection in their troublesome lives.
From this it is very clear that the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and the poor will not get a place in the BPL list in many of the districts in Rajasthan while those who can look after themselves will corner all the benefits meant for the depressed and downtrodden. The Government wants to wash of their hands on the poor.
In order to convert the demands, a dharna for indefinite time period was started by the Khetihar Khan Mazdoor Sangathan at the collector chouraha of Chittorgarh beginning from the 1st of May.
However the whole story took a great turn on the second day of the dharna itself when a call was received from the collector asking for a face to face discussion in order to settle down the things. The meeting lasted for about one and a half hour at the end of which the collector had to succumb to LSS demands. It was decided that a resurvey would be conducted for all the 7655 appeals submitted so far from the nine tehsils of Chittorgarh. It was also decided that the resurvey would be conducted in the presence of at least one representative from our sangathan in order to assure that no injustice happens this time. Also to be noted that the commissioner appointed for the BPL survey would be visiting a few villages himself on the 3rd of May in order to verify the situation. BPL Dharna in Oct, 2006
The supreme court advisory team accepted the mistakes in the survey. The general expectation is that the survey would be redone. However, in Sept, the Cabinet ministry published the results of the 2002-2003 survey and made them valid. Inspite of the protests, the State Government released the BPL census 2002 on 15 Sept 2006. This has resulted in a lot of anguish among the poor people. The census identified 17,36,200 families as below poverty line, 3,61,360 less than the BPL census of 1997. The distribution has been extremely disproportionate among the different districts of Rajasthan. While the districts of Jodhpur and Ganganagar showed a near 100% increase in the number of BPL families, a number of other districts showed a huge decrease. In the district of Chittaurgarh alone 77,111 families lost access to ration cards, housing schemes and health cards that they had been availing atleast partially for several years in the past.
This time, the Union is determined to continue the dharna till all its demands are accepted and also implemented.
The demands of the Oct Dharna are: a) The survey be made available to the ward sabhas for identification of poor families after deleting the irrelevant and ill-designed questions b) All the Bheel families from the districts of Chittaurgarh, Kota, Boondhi, Bilwada, Rajasmand be awarded the Antyoday status.
……. The struggle continues… |