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Ministry redefines 'poverty line'

Mamata Singh in New Delhi

The ministry of rural development, which conducts a Below Poverty Line census every five years, has come up with new criteria for identifying the number of people below the poverty line.

Rather than using the income or expenditure criteria as has been done so far, the ministry has simplified the process to take into account various socio-economic indicators of rural households.

Expressing the view that estimation of poverty and identification of poor are not one and the same, the ministry had shot off letters to various states asking them for their views on the new format and on how soon it could be adopted.

The aim was to not only measure income poverty but also other aspects affecting the quality of rural life.

Based on the report of an expert group set up under P L Sanjeev Reddy, the ministry identified a list of 13 questions which were to be put to rural households in the country.

In a census, households were to be asked questions regarding the size of operational holdings, type of house, availability of clothing, food security, ownership of consumer durables, type of indebtedness, reasons for migration and preference of type of assistance-wage employment, self employment or training and skill upgradation.

The responses were to be marked on a scale of 0 to 4, with the total score ranging from 0 to 52. States would then be given the freedom to decide on the cut-off scores to identify the households as very poor, poor, not so poor and non-poor. These scores could vary between districts and even between villages.

Such a score based ranking of households is simple, does not require any estimate of the poverty line and does not take into account income and expenditure, both of which are difficult to access, the expert group had opined.

The classification would help states to identify BPL households for targeting under different programmes.

The number of BPL households however, was not to exceed the BPL estimates of the Planning Commission in 1999-2000 by more than 10 per cent.

The expert group had suggested that households could be given BPL cards which could be used as access cards but would not give holders any right of benefit.

The group had, that all field operations be completed by the end of the calendar year and finalisation of the BPL households be done by the end of March 2003.

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