BHUBANESWAR: The State Government today announced in the Assembly that name of no eligible family will be struck off from the BPL list. Replying to an adjournment motion brought by the Congress members, Panchayati Raj Minister Prafulla Kumar Samal said that the 2002 list which is yet to be finalised, will be updated and names of all BPL families upto 2009 included in it.
The Minister announced that the list will be finalised soon in response to demands from members cutting across partylines.
Blaming the Centre for changing the indicators for identification of BPL families every five years, he said that while 1992 income was the indicator, it was changed to expenditure in 1997. There were 13 socio-economic indicators for the 2002 survey, he said.
Criticising the Centre for discriminating Orissa in fixing the number of BPL families, Samal said that the parameters for all states should be similar. He, however, maintained that Centre followed different parameters for determining the number of BPL families in states like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka where the numbers have increased substantially.
According to the Planning Commission, 48 per cent of the rural families are below poverty line. As per the 2002 survey there are 78,73,056 rural families in the State. If the criteria of Planning Commission is taken into account, the BPL families will be 37.79 lakh. Taking into account the 10 percent transient poor the number of BPL families in the State will be 41.56 lakh, he said.
The Centre has, however, allowed 38 lakh families to be included in the BPL list.
The State Government had written several letters to the Centre to increase the number to 41.56 lakh, but there is no response as yet, he said.
Congress chief whip Prasad Harichandan criticised the State Government for not taking steps to finalise the BPL list as a result of which seven lakh beneficiaries have been deprived of getting benefits.
Stating that the BPL card is an important document without which a family in rural area does not get any benefit, Harichandan said that the State Government is sitting idle even though the Supreme Court stay on finalising the 2002 list has been lifted long back.
Harichandan alleged that the NDA government had reduced the number of BPL families to 31.48 lakh and it was increased to 41.56 lakh by the UPA Government.
There is no justification in trying to blame the Centre for every lapse of the State Government, he said.
His party colleague Anup Sai alleged that BPL cards are being sold and houses under the central scheme are being allotted to fake card holders.
Surendra Prasad Paramanik (Cong) and Pratap Sarangi (Ind) demanded that the BPL list should be finalised at the earliest while Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh demanded the motion should be admitted for discussion.
Pradipta Maharathi (BJD) demanded that the names of well-to-do families should be deleted from the list and the names of genuine people be included.