BPL Dharna - Updates

Below Poverty Line (BPL) Struggle in Rajasthan - Updates

Oct 12th, 2006: The Dharna in Chittorgarh has been called off after the Rajasthan Govt issued a stay order on the new survey reslits.

Various NGO's and organizations met with the Chief Secretary of Rajasthan in Jaipur on the 11th. The secretary issued a stay order on the new survey reslits and until further notice the 1997 lists will be used,

The chief secretrary of the state admitted that 80% of the survey was wrong. This was very important. The state had not accepted to this before. Further only 22% of those in the 97 list were in the 2002 list. For districts with more than 30% change in the 1997 and 2002 numbers, suo motto powers will be given to the colector to conduct a re-survey.Appeals will be accepted and reviewed

Oct 3rd, 2006: Khetihar Khaan Mazdoor Sangathan, Lok Shikshan Sansthan and Prayas started a dharna in Chittorgarh. The idea was to have the dharna for 10-13 days in Chittorgarh. One day is allocated for each tehsil of this district (There are 13 tehsils). There was intensive campaigning in the villages asking people to join for their tehsil and share their stories. The purpose of having the dharna in chittorgarh was to get village participation and increase the awareness of the BPL process. The cost of travel for villagers is much less to chittaud than Jaipur. In these 10 days, a few people will be identified to go to Jaipur and there will be a dharna there.

Below is a report of the struggle till Oct 15th 2006.

Dharna.
Oct 3rd 2006 - Oct 12th 2006

Each day there was a 3-4 hr meeting discussing the following topics

The survey format - discussion on a few questions - villagers also pointed out some of these
The process - survey, ward sabha, gram sabha and appeal Sharing of BPL census experiences from different villages
Sharing of some sangatan stories from different villages.
Post Card abhiyan
Purpose and demands of the dharna

Over 1300 people from nearly 300 villages attended the dharna in the 10 days. 10-30 people slept at the dharna site all the days. Meeting at Jaipur Oct 10th , Oct 11th 2006

Experience sharing between different groups

There was representation from 14 different districts. There was a long session of experience sharing. Even in the districts where the BPL families doubled there were so many poor left out. There were repetition of names, addition of names at the computer centers and several other corrupt practices. In several cases the names added as a reslit of appeals were not updated.

Except for LSS and another organisation in Nokha, the other groups started work after the BPL lists were released. They were all interested in appeal process and were busy filing appeals. One group had filed 14,000 and another 3000. Khemrajji, Ram Rai ji and Sumanji had vehemently opposed appealing for the following reasons

They had filed 7655 appeals in the past and they were all rejected.
The appeal processing has been so unjust.
Proper notice has not been given to the appealers
Only a few questions were considered
When they went door-to-door the officials showed a clear bias between castes.
A few cases of corrected scores were finally not updated
The people who wolid process and hear the appeals were no different from the ones who initially validated the survey. There is no reason to believe that they wolid do it right this time
An appeal wolid work if 2% of the survey was wrong, not when 80% has gone wrong.
It wolid cost already poor people money to appeal and travel several times to prove that they are wrong. Why sholid people be made to pay the price for the Govt.s mistake
Appealing wolid weaken the struggle as the organizations wolid get stuck in the Govt. machinery instead of mobilizing people

But there was no consensus as many groups who had just started work still wanted to try it out.

Session with Supreme Court Advisor for Right to Food Viraj

According to Planning Commission, any person who has an income of Rs.11 in rural areas and Rs. 17 in urban areas is considered above the poverty line. According to this estimate there was are only 11% poor in the state of Rajasthan.

Viraj explained that the Central Govt. is at falit only to the extent that it suggested that the State Govt. sholid identify poor families not above 17.36 lakh families following the survey format. The survey itself was only a suggestion which the state govt. had a choice to modify and several state Govts have modified it. The upper limit on the number of BPL families only means that the Central Govt. will provide ration for so many families only. Several states have made their own food lists much larger than the Central Govt. stipliated numbers and they subdize the cost over and above what the Central Govt. provides.

Central Govt. only recognizes 11% poverty in Andhra Pradesh, but the state Government provides ration for 80% subsidizing from the states budget. TN provides subsidized rice for all. Pondicherry provides 10kg rice free for all. They do it by taking all their APL quotas from the Central Govt. and subsidizing the difference between APL and BPL.

Pradeep Bhargava informed that the state of Rajasthan does not pick up the APL quota. If it picks up the APL quota at Rs.6.70 from the Central govt. and subsidizes it by 2Rs, the cost for the state Govt. is very affordable.

Session with MLAs

There was a session with MLAs. (Only the Congress MLAs came. The Communist party MLAs were busy with another sangatan, BJP MLAs didn't turn up). When asked what they can do to help in this matter, they plainly said as a political party there are more interested in satta (power). Though their karyakathas will support the efforts of the struggle, they will not take a strong position as they do not want to face anger from certain sections.

Session with the chief secretary of the state

Chief Secretary admitted that 80% of the lists are wrong. Only 22% of the families from the 97 list found place in the 2002 list. There were a lot of protests in 1997 too, but eventually they calmed down.

The state govt. was not willing to release the lists,

He explained the 2 Govt. orders

Till further notice, the BPL list 1997 will be used for the distribution of ration.
In villages where there is more than 30% difference in the 1997 and 2002 lists, the Collector by suo motto power will order a resurvey of the 2 lists for addition and deletion of names. The poor not in both lists have to appeal

A few things which were troubling in these orders

We do not know when the further notice will come
The suo motto power was given to the collector - which means she/he can decide if the survey will be conducted or not.
Resurvey is a Govt. expense. An appeal is a poor person's expense. For a poor family not in both the lists, is the Govt. only giving this expensive option which has proved to be against the poor. When asked this question, the secretary said appeals can be done at the panchayat level, but there is no order to this extent.

Session with Harsh Mandar

Harsh Mandarji explained that this survey is done by the Department of Rural Development. The Department itself has only a few schemes

Employment Guarantee Act which doesn't use the BPL list
Swarnajayanthi Grameen Rojgar Yojna (about 30000 people)
Indira Awas Yojna (30000 families)

It is for this last scheme which was only going to benefit 30000 families that the Central Govt. forced the state to release the fality BPL lists.

The food department and the health department also use this BPL list when don't really have to. Even we have internalized the idea that this is the list, which can dictate who can get subsidy on food. If we can sort this out in our own minds and get the assembly also think on these lines that

This is a list prepared by the Rural Development and let the Rural Development alone use this list.
Let the food ministry make its own list, which is more inclusive and get the state govt. to subsidize above what the central govt. provides.
Let the health ministry make its own list.

He also discussed a few Supreme Court judgements which he felt were very important. A Supreme Court order without pressure from people does not mean anything. So, he asked different groups to pressurize for their implementation.

He also pointed out that as individuals we are also responsible for the fraudlient BPL list. We are a part of the insensitivity, indifference and power politics in this process. It is our responsibility to raise it at every level, during the survey, at the gram sabha, during the appeal process.

Overall, the meeting in Jaipur was successfli to the extent that we have lots of good information and know the possibilities to work for. In terms of our agenda, it didn't really work. Especially we hoped for a consensus on disowning not just the new lists, but the appeal process too. Since other organizations were at different stages in trying out the possible procedural options and were not willing to take experiences of the Sangtan for granted, it was not possible to get consensus on the appeal process. But there was agreement on disowning the new BPL lists. It was decided that we launch a dharna at Jaipur on November 17th and before that meet on the 26th for a planning session.

At Amarpura

The dharna was called off on the 12th. We tried to meet the collector before we left, but he was not available. We came back not so happy. Though the 2002 lists are temporarily withdrawn, the karyakarthas were a little low in spirits mainly because the Collector didn't bother to come or invite us to understand why we were sitting infront of his office for 10 days day and night.