Below Poverty Line
Going into a survey due for a decade, India's central government is undecided on criteria to identify families below poverty line.
Income-based poverty lines consider the bare minimum income to provide basic food requirements; it does not account for other essentials such as health care and education.
[6] In its Tenth Five-Year Plan (2002–2007) survey, BPL for rural areas was based on the degree of deprivation in respect of 13 parameters, with scores from 0–4: landholding, type of house, clothing, food security, sanitation, consumer durables, literacy status, labour force, means of livelihood, status of children, type of indebtedness, reasons for migrations, etc.
[4] In its Tenth Five-Year Plan BPL for urban areas was based on degree of deprivation in respect of seven parameters: roof, floor, water, sanitation, education level, type of employment, and status of children in a house.
The Rangarajan committee was tasked with revisiting the Tendulkar formula for estimation of poverty and identification of the poor after a massive public outcry erupted over the abnormally low poverty lines fixed by UPA government Beginning in the 1990s, the government of Kerala started utilizing a multidimensional approach to measuring poor households in the state.
The nine parameters for urban areas are: Kerala experienced significant changes in its social welfare system for people living below the poverty line.
Fair price shops were conveniently located in both urban and rural spaces, and 'no individual needed to walk more than 2 km' to access rice and wheat.
The government issued new cards to families living below the poverty line and restricted access to the fair price shops to the beneficiaries of the TDPS only.
per month per head) This income is bare minimum to support the food requirements and does not provide much for the other basic essential items like health, education etc.
The Government after detailed examination has decided to accept the proposal of the Director of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj and accordingly order to fix the cut off mark as 17 for identification of a family as Below Poverty Line family.8.
While the National Sample Survey (NSS) data showed a decline in overall poverty from 36% in 1993–94 to 28% in 2004–05, the numbers told a different story for areas with tribal populations.
In addition, certain "income generation programs" along with financial organizations that provide coaching in "entrepreneurial skills" do exist for these groups.
A study found that in an area where member of SC/ST groups are assigned roles of leadership, more funds are allocated towards welfare programs.
The NRHM focuses on accessibility to health care in some of the poorest areas of India, and encourages education and uplifting of Adivasi and Dalit women.
The NREG "implies a legal entitlement for every poor rural family to 100 days of work at the minimum wage, and aims to end food insecurity, empower village communities, and create assets".
[8] The National Sample Survey Office originally focused on capturing absolute poverty by looking at the per capita consumption as representative of the overall welfare of individuals.
[11] The BPL method employed to measure the number of people living in poverty in India takes food, clothing, housing, and sanitation into account along with literacy and labor status.
[7] The food indicator of the BPL method counts the number of meals a family has and completely ignores the quality and nutritional factors.
In order to become a beneficiary of the BPL and receive benefits like the Public Distribution System, the government requires identification documents and a permanent address.
For families that are homeless and reside on pavements and parks, they have no means of obtaining ration cards and cheap food grains.
[6] Marxist Communist party member and Social activist Mariam Dhavale, State secretary of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), finds the criteria for determining BPL status puzzling and one that excludes the deserving.If you have a pucca house, a two-wheeler, a fan… you are ineligible.
For example, the people who put in manual work under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act need not belong to families below the poverty line.
Similarly, the rural electrification programme Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana had the concept of below poverty line families.
But the new approach of Soubhagya scheme is to make no discrimination based on the poverty line, but to go on the basis of households that do not have electricity connection.
In the maternity benefit scheme renamed as Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, there is automatic and universal coverage, without any mention of whether a pregnant woman is below the poverty line or not.
( See Ministry of Women and Child Development at http://www.wcd.nic.in/sites/default/files/PMMVY%20Scheme%20Implemetation%20Guidelines%20._0.pdf) However, there is still lack of clarity on fully integrating SECC data of 2011 with old age pension/ widow pension/ disability pension schemes.
(See http://nsap.nic.in/Guidelines/nsap_guidelines_oct2014.pdf) Thus, by and large, the present position is that while SECC database of 2011 provides a basic skeleton, each developmental scheme is now run independently based on the necessity, rather than getting bogged down to one single list of targeted families.
