AHMEDABAD: One-third of Gujarat’s population or over 31 lakh families are living Below Poverty Line (BPL). The poverty line is estimated at Rs 816 per capita per month for rural areas and Rs 1,000 for urban areas or Rs 32 per day for rural and Rs 26 for urban.
On September 14, replying to a question from Congress MLA Tushar Chaudhary, State Minister for Rural Development Bachubhai Maganbhai Khabad informed 31,61,310 BPL families have been identified in Gujarat. Of these, 16,28,744 families fall under the extremely poor category while 15,32,566 in poor.
Moreover, in 2020-21, as many as 1,047 families slipped into the BPL category while just 14 came out of it. The figure for 2021-22, new BPL families was 1,751 while two moved away from the category. In 2022-23, the rise in BPL category families was 303 while the decrease was only one.
Hemant Kumar Shah, an economist based in Ahmedabad, says, “If we consider 31.64 lakh poor families with an average of six members per family, then the number of BPL population is 1 crore 89 lahks, implying one-third of population is below the poverty line.”