Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

BPL list: State to draw up scientific strategy

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State government has launched preliminary efforts to strengthen its position in the protracted dispute with the Union government on the poverty levels in the State. Minister for Food and Civil Supplies C. Divakaran has convened a meeting of experts and officials on October 12 to discuss the modalities to be adopted for finalising the list of families below poverty line (BPL) in the State, as part of the efforts.

Official sources told TheHindu here that the meeting would try to draw up a scientific strategy to counter the decision of the Centre to ‘arbitrarily reject’ the State’s demand for an upward revision of the number of families which face various forms of deprivations.

Planning Board Member K. Ramachandran Nair, agriculture expert Rajasekharan, economist M.A. Oommen, Finance Principal Secretary Jose Cyriac and Local Self-Government Secretary S.M. Vijayanand were among those invited for the meeting, to be held in the Minister’s Chamber. As per Central estimates, there are only 10 lakh BPL families in Kerala, while the State government claims that nearly 20 lakh families should be included in the category.

The Centre’s poverty estimates are based on the calorie-intake level of each family. Accordingly, families which have the wherewithal for an intake of 2,400 calories per day in rural areas and 2,100 calories per day in urban areas are classified as belonging to the above poverty line (APL) category.

One of the items to be discussed at the meeting would be formulation of the criteria to be adopted for measuring the levels of poverty prevailing in the State, the sources said.

Many experts have argued that the Centre has indulged in a gross underestimation of poverty levels in the State even as per its own norms of calorie intake. Serious criticisms have also been raised against the conceptual foundations of the Central norms for assessing poverty. Experts argue that the Central norms are particularly inadequate to capture the levels of poverty in a State like Kerala where the people are facing multiple dimensions of deprivations, though at the surface they appear to be meeting many of the criteria of the APL category.

The officials said the suggestions that would emerge at the meeting would be placed before the Cabinet and more detailed discussions, if needed, would be held later.

The meeting will also discuss the follow-up steps to be taken for the distribution of BPL cards in the State. The government had originally planned to distribute the BPL cards by Onam. But it had to be deferred because of the outbreak of chikungunya and the Central-State dispute on the number of BPL families in the State.

The State can continue to extend the benefits of its various welfare schemes to as many people it desires, irrespective of the number of families to which the BPL cards have been issued. However, the quantum of Central assistance to the State under the various Centrally-sponsored schemes will be restricted in accordance with the number of families included in the BPL list. It is this threat that has persuaded the political leadership in the State to launch a campaign against the Centre on the BPL issue.

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