BHUBANESWAR: The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has requested the State Government to finalise the BPL list on the basis of 2002 household survey.
The request of the MoRD came at a time when it is in the process of finalising the methodology for 2010 BPL census. Besides, the Ministry had already released Rs 14 crore to the State for conducting the next BPL survey.
Orissa is among the six states which has not finalised the BPL list as per the 2002 survey.
The BPL census 2002 was conducted for the Tenth Five-Year Plan (2002- 2007). However, none of the states could prepare a fresh BPL list for the Tenth plan period due to stay order of the Supreme Court.
The apex court directive came in response to a petition by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), an NGO, challenging the methodology for selection of BPL families.
Although the Supreme Court vacated the stay order on February 14, 2006, the State Government did not finalise the BPL list on the basis of 2002 survey for the next BPL census was due in 2007 for the Eleventh Plan Period.
Instead of taking any initiative for conducting 2007 BPL census, the Centre directed the states to go for progressive reduction of BPL families.
The Planning Commission asked the State Government to reduce the number of BPL families by 10 per cent from 43.97 lakh to 34.63 lakh.
This led to a war of words between the State Government and the Centre over the Planning Commission’s formula for determination of BPL families and it continued for such a long time that none of them bothered about the BPL census for the Eleventh Plan period.
Then came the report of an expert group set up by the MoRD for finalisation of methodology for BPL census in 2009. Subsequently, the Suresh Tendulkar Committee, set up by the Planning Commission, submitted its report on the methodology to estimate poverty which was finally accepted by the Centre.
While the BPL census for Twelfth Five-Year Plan is due in 2012, the Centre has already alerted the State to go for the next round of household surve y a n d a c c o r d i n g l y p r o v i d e d financial assistance for the BPL census.
The Union Secretary of MoRD SK Sinha in a recent communique to Chief Secretary T.K. Mishra has requested to finalise the BPL list and submit district wise number of BPL households to the ministry. “It is inappropriate to select beneficiaries for poverty alleviation programmes on the basis of the 1997 BPL list when the Centre is preparing for BPL census 2010,’’ Sinha admitted in the same letter.