Karnataka - Bangalore

Card census to end on November 20

BANGALORE: Food and Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister H. Halappa on Tuesday said that 41 lakh of the 124 lakh families in the State, whose members were yet to be photographed for categorising them under the below-the-poverty-line and above-the-poverty-line families, would be covered in the final stage of the programme.

The Minister said the deadline of the month-long programme would come to an end on November 20. He requested those whose pictures had not been taken by the photographers of the department to cooperate with it and provide the same for knowing the exact number of families under the BPL category.

Till now, he said that there were 58 lakh BPL cardholders in the State and of them 6.20 lakh were considered bogus families (non-existent). There were 25 lakh APL families in the State.

Sources in the department said the number of bogus cards might go up to 10 lakh. Many people, who had duplicate cards, had dared not to come before the department photographers, lest they would be caught, the sources added.

The Minister said the earlier Government had taken three years to take pictures of members of 32 lakh families while the Bharatiya Janata Party Government had taken pictures of 51 lakh families within three months. He said the plantation workers, numbering around 2.5 lakh in the State, had been demanding the Government to bring them under the BPL category. Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa had made a promise to them in his last budget.

He said the criteria stipulated that a family which had a mobile phone or a two-wheeler or had two bulbs or tube lights in his or her house or the income, more than Rs. 12,000 a year, was not eligible for considering to be included in the BPL family.

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