In my earlier post, I spoke about how the Indian government identifies the BPL families who are then showered with all the benefits that will put many socialist countries to shame.
The BPL list is prepared by two departments. The Planning Commission estimates BPL numbers using the NSSO surveys. Here the criteria is only calorie intake. If a person earns enough money to consume 2400 calories of food in rural areas, he is not poor.This criteria will always produce a smaller BPL figure.
The Ministry of Rural Development has used a 13point list which includes sanitation, education, type of house to identify the poor households. Since one is using many variables and not just calorie intake to identify poverty, this figure will be higher than the one estimated by the Planning Commission.
Here is the irony. The figures put out by Ministry of Rural Development must not be higher than the one put out by the Planning Commission! This is absolutely ludicrous. So the whole exercise has been reduced to what my Professor says "BPL reconciliation process"
No wonder the eminent lawyer Nani Palkhiwala called Delhi a "thought free zone"
Comparison Of Madhya Pradesh and Congo, both having a similar MPI, says that nutritional deprivation in the former far exceeds the latter.
ReplyDelete27% only seems to be a convenient figure put up by the Planning Commission.