Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

State faces a daunting task in finalising BPL list

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala faces an uphill task in finalising the list of families below poverty line (BPL) here as the Central-State dispute on the issue remains unresolved.

When contacted Minister for Food and Civil Supplies C. Divakaran told The Hindu here that the State government would continue its struggle to persuade the Centre to accept its demand for an upward revision of the BPL list in the State, even though the Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has rejected the State’s demand in this regard.

There is wide divergence between estimates made by the Centre and State government on the poverty levels in the State. As per the earlier Central estimates there were only 15.54 lakh BPL families in the State, while the State government’s figure was 20.22 lakh families. But later, the Centre said the number of BPL families in the State had come down to 10.529 lakh, and experts pointed out that the figure was likely to come down further as per more recent Central estimates.

On the other side, most of the political parties in the State and the State government were of the view that the Centre has grossly underestimated the poverty levels here. They fear that this position of the Centre would not only deprive adequate Central allocation of food grains to the State, but will also lead to drastic cuts in the quantum of funds that the State would get for other Centrally-sponsored schemes.

However, reliable sources said the Government was planning to issue the BPL ration cards `temporarily’ to the 10.529 lakh families as identified by the Centre and continue the fight with the Centre for an upward revision in the number.

Some sections in the government are of the view that there is little scope for intense fight with the Centre on the poverty estimates in the State, as it has been a long-pending issue. “We should have actually taken up the issue seriously in 2002 and now that one Plan period is over there is very little we can do at this stage, except to contain further detrimental actions from the Centre,” said an official of the Local Administration Department (LAD).

However, there are also many in the State government who feel that the State should put up a more vigorous fight on the issue by questioning the very basis adopted by the Centre to estimate poverty, and coming up with alternative models in this regard.

According to them, the State government must build a case by arguing that poverty can not be estimated in static terms but should be assessed on the basis of dynamic parameters which are capable of capturing the unique dimensions of deprivations prevailing in each region.

“A family cannot be classified as non-poor just because it had a house or had been sending the children to schools, at a particular point of time. What is important is to estimate whether the income that the people get either through the sale of their labour power or the items they produce were sufficient to meet their daily requirements.

These figures will evidently change depending on the fluctuations in the different segments of market,” said a source in the State Planning Board.

The Centre’s poverty estimates were based on calorie intake and accordingly the people, who had the income for an intake of 2,400 calories per day in urban areas and 2,100 calories per day in the rural areas, were classified as non-poor. According to economist M.A. Oommen, the conceptual foundation of this estimate of poverty is very weak.

It does not take into account the recent definitions of poverty based on `quality of human resources’ and on the concepts of capability deprivations.

It only takes note of the nutrition deficiency and ignores other elementary capabilities like education, health care, employment and women empowerment.

The State government is yet to give a final approval to its own criteria for estimating the poverty in the State, though the LAD has drawn up a tentative design in this regard based on nine criteria.

Asked about this, Dr. Oommen said this model also had several shortcomings though it included several relevant dimensions for assessing poverty in the State’s context.

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