The Hindu : New Delhi News : Centre convenes meet to review BPL family estimates

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 28, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Centre convenes meet to review BPL family estimates

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, OCT. 27. The Centre has convened a meeting of State Food Ministers on October 28 to evolve a consensus on strengthening the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS).

The focus of the meeting will be to review the estimates of the Below Poverty Line (BPL) families and the criteria for their identification which is believed to be "politicised and subjective" in some States. The States will be asked to leave the identification to gram sabhas of the duly elected panchayats.

Eligibility criteria

The meeting, to be chaired by the Food and Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar, will attempt to reconcile the statistics of 6.52 crore BPL families targeted under the TPDS system, as against the issuance of more than 8.20 crore ration cards to such families. The Centre had made it clear to the State Food Secretaries that only bona-fide Indians were eligible for subsidised foodgrains under the TPDS. The meeting had recommended that since several States felt that the number of BPL families projected by the Planning Commission did not correspond to the ground realities, the Commission should be asked to reconsider the criteria and re-determine the BPL estimates. In case it is decided to enhance the number of BPL families, then the Centre would have to make a higher foodgrain allocation to States.

The Food Ministers' meet will also consider the recommendation that all migrant labour, the displaced or the homeless be issued ration entitlement slips (as in Uttar Pradesh) which should serve this "limited purpose" and not be treated as proof of residence or entitlement for any other benefit.

`Retail commission'

The States will be asked their opinion on the suggestions to improve the viability of ration shops. Cooperatives of women and ex-servicemen should be given priority for allotmentof fair price shops. In view of the existing parameters of the Antodaya Anna Yojna, the Centre proposes to provide "retail commission" to ration shops to make them viable, while bank credit to fair price shops are proposed to be treated as priority sector lending.

The meeting will also consider the Centre's proposal for convergence of all food-based welfare schemes and for allowing concurrent monitoring of the TPDS by "external agencies," be it NGOs or anyone agreed upon by the States.

To reduce the high economic cost of foodgrains to the Food Corporation of India, States will be encouraged to go in for decentralised procurement.

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