THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A new BPL list published by the State Government on Friday has put 42.43 percent of families in the State below the poverty line.
The new list is remarkably different from the existing one which listed only 30.61 percent families as BPL.
Of the total 76,12,343 families, 32,29,823 are BPL, according to the list released by Local Self-Government Minister Paloli Mohammed Kutty. And of this, 4.37 lakh families are in urban areas and 27.92 lakh families, in rural areas. In the old list, 17,23,556 of 56,31,235 families were listed as BPL.
The huge difference between the two lists, the Minister said, was because certain sections such as plantation workers have been as a whole listed as BPL.
The State figures drastically differ from the Central Government’s list which accepts only 10.25 lakh families (12.52 percent) in rural Kerala as living below the poverty line. The Minister said that all families listed as BPL would have equal right to government benefits. Since the Centre is unlikely to accept the new list, the financial aid from the Centre will not witness any increase.
Paloli said the increase in number will not put additional financial burden on the State Government since it was already catering to such a huge BPL population.
‘’The new list has been prepared by teachers according to guidelines set by the State Government. We have time and again objected to the norms used by the Centre to identify poor families,’’ Paloli said. ‘’The Central norms are not practical for determining who is poor in a state like Kerala.’’
And because of the revised norms set by the State Government, the number of BPL families in many districts have shot up. For instance, the old list has 13.5 percent of the families in Idukki coming under BPL category whereas in the new list the number has gone up to 55.38 percent. In Wayanad, the percentage has gone up from 40.4 percent to 57.46, while Kottayam registered a massive increase to 41.43 percent from a mere 14.81 percent. Idukki and Wayanad are also the only two districts where more than half the families are listed BPL. Poor families account for more than 45 percent each in six other districts. Capital Thiruvananthapuram has 47.3 percent BPL families while Ernakulam has 34.23 percent BPL families.
An 11-point criteria was used to exclude families from the new BPL list. For example, families that have members employed abroad, families that own a concrete house exceeding 1000 sq ft in area, families that own a four-wheeler for private use, have been excluded.
The Minister said that detailed panchayat/municipality-level figures will be ready for publication by January 31. They will be published at the local level from February 1 onwards.
‘’If complaints arise that eligible families have been left out, their cases will be examined and appropriate steps will be taken,’’ Paloli said.
The District Collectors concerned will be the final authority on such complaints. The LSG Department also plans to upload the data on its website soon.