Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

BPL list: Isaac blames Centre

T.M. Thomas Isaac

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac has said that the United Democratic Front (UDF) owed an apology to the people of the State for the difficulties being encountered by the government in determining the families that come under the Below Poverty Line (BPL) list.

At a press conference here on Tuesday, he said that, firstly, the decision to limit the number of BPL families in the State to 10.259 lakh was taken by the Union government now controlled by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance.

In spite of repeated requests, the Centre refused to allow the State government to increase the list so that all the families actually experiencing poverty could be included on the list.

Secondly, the previous UDF government did conduct a survey using the restrictive guidelines given by the Union government in 2003. It was held up due to a court case for some time, but was not resumed by the UDF government after the case was disposed of by the court in 2005.

Local Self-government Minister Paloli Mohammed Kutty, who too addressed the press conference, said that the Left Democratic Front (LDF), upon assuming charge of the government, used the 2003 census details as the basis for preparing a tentative BPL list.

The government also decided to include all families belonging to the fishermen community and Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe sections, besides the families in poverty detected by the neighbourhood groups.

The particulars of 36,48,334 families had so far been subjected to verification, Mr. Paloli Mohammed Kutty said. Of them, 21.03 lakh families were in the list handed over to the grama sabhas.

This exercise was yet to be undertaken in the urban centres.

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