Consultation after consultation, poor still to be identified

One can understand how Naxals emerged strong in the country where the Union government took two years to estimate the poverty and it is still not clear how to identify the poor.
To add to the woos, the Union Rural Development Ministry has been asked to conduct Below Poverty Line (BPL) survey, but not final, but as pilot project in only 260 villages. No one knows when the government will finally come out with the BPL survey as final.
The states had been fighting with the Centre on the number of BPL families and the fight resulted in hiccups to deliver the benefits to the poor in the villages, or even the urban areas. The Food Security Bill is also being pending on the pretext of the lack of authentic BPL survey.
The work on the pilot project may begin in July, 2010 for a month long period to will test the feasibility of exclusion and inclusion criteria of the final BPL survey.
“It’s ridiculous,” said an observer and added that the whole exercise is being done to favour some agencies at a time when the whole administration in the country is engaged in the census.
“The same government employees who are going from House to House for census activities, could have done the BPL survey too as most of the questions the data collectors of the pilot project would repeat what has already been asked by the census employees,” said sources in the Ministry of Rural Development.
In the pilot project too, the Ministry has come out with the criteria like Muslims, SC and ST households, casual and agricultural labourers, artisans and traditional professionals, single woman or minor led households, MGNREGS card holders who have worked for or over 50 days will be first suo motu included in the list of BPL and then on the basis of their land holdings and assets as well as on income criteria they will be excluded.
“This is unnecessarily complicated process and the process of inclusion and then exclusion will give rise to corruption at the local levels,” an observer added.