Identification of the Poor in the Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-2007)

During the Tenth Five Year Plan an innovative approach was adopted in the matter of identification of poor families. The identification process was based on thirteen indicators of well-being. For each of these thirteen indicators, the households were awarded a score in a five point scale as 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4; the scores being inversely related to the poverty and deprivation of

the household. A low score indicate a higher level of poverty and deprivation and vice-versa.

The lower the score of the household, the greater is the chance of selection as a beneficiary. The thirteen indicators of level of living chosen were: (a) Land Holding (b) Shelter (c) Clothing (d) Food Security (e) Sanitation (f) Ownership of Consumer Durables (g) Education (h) Labour Characteristics (i) Occupation category (j) Children’s status (k) Indebtedness (l) Migration (m) Preference towards State Assistance.

50. The exclusion criteria is if the family operates more than two hectares of land, has a pucca house, if any resident member of the family has annual income from salary/self-employment exceeding Rs. 20,000 per annum (Rs. 1,700 per month), or if the family possesses aTelevision set, Refrigerator, Ceiling Fan, Motor Cycle/Scooter, Three-Wheeler, or if the family owns a Tractor, Power Tiller, Combined Thresher/Harvester, then the family is summarily excluded from the BPL group.

For each household, the scores from these 13 indicators were summed up to get the aggregate score of the household, which could range from zero to 52. The households were chosen for assistance according to their scores. The household with the least score was selected for assistance first. Then the household with next lowest score got selected. This way, the household with the highest score would be chosen last.

This method did not make use of the poverty line (used in the Seventh, 1985-90 and Eighth Plan, 1992-97) or a mix of poverty line and exclusion criteria (used in the Ninth Plan, 1997-2002). The method did not also yield the estimate of percentage of households living below the poverty line (obtained in the Eighth and Ninth Plan). In fine, this method did not use the poverty cut-off point to quantify the number of poor families. It rather underscored the attainment (or otherwise) of several socio-economic indicators that governs the well-being of population and ranked the households as per their access to these indicators. Furthermore, the choice of beneficiaries in an anti-poverty programme according to the consecutively higher score made the selection procedure contingent upon a concept of relative poverty, rather than absolute poverty as was the case earlier in the Eighth and Ninth Plans. However, in this respect also, the likelihood of choosing non-poor as the beneficiary cannot be ruled out since households with low score may not always necessarily be poor.

The methodology of BPL census 2002, therefore, allowed grading of the rural households in descending order based on a thirteen socio-economic indicators. The State Governments had been allowed freedom to select the bottom most families of the poor households such that the total percentage of families selected could be in consonance with the number of BPL households estimated by the Planning Commission. A margin of ten percent had been allowed over and above the Planning Commission’s estimate. The cut-off points were allowed to be determined by the State Governments and could be at the district, block and any other level.

This method was devised for selection of beneficiary families during the Tenth Plan period (2002-2007). The surveys on this method (BPL Census, 2002) have been conducted. But, this method of identifying families had not been made operational initially due to a temporary stay by the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

The score based methodology of BPL Census 2002 has been criticized from several quarters and on various counts. First, a number of parameters in the score based methodology (for example, provision of toilets in the rural houses, housing, and education status of the children of the rural families) creates disincentives for the rural families in accessing these benefits because of the potential fear that is generated in their minds that revealing these

information might lead to their potential exclusion from the BPL list. Second, as there was no fixed quota in terms of selection of beneficiaries, most panchayats usually recommended a large number of names. However, many of these names were replaced later at the upper tier of administration by names of those with higher political or bureaucratic clout. Since the power of panchayats and gram sabhas was only confined to recommending names, the final decision on selection of potential BPL beneficiaries was in the hands of a few powerful bureaucrats at the upper tier. Thus, the entire selection process turned out to be top-down, non-transparent and encouraged corruption. Third, it was difficult to capture information on deprivations on some parameters like availability of clothes, food security, preference for assistance, etc. with a high level of objectivity as these parameters were neither clearly observable nor directly verifiable in nature. Most of the 13 criteria, as mentioned above, are such that cheating or giving false answers could not be easily checked. Fourth, when the poor raised voices against their non- inclusion they were often told that the list was full and their inclusion would be contingent upon a listed beneficiary’s death. And finally, the inappropriate assessment in requirement for staff for doing a comprehensive survey led to the consequence that in actual practice often detailed survey

was skipped, and the survey sheets were filled up within the office itself.51

3.4 Report of the Expert Group on the methodology for conducting the BPL Census for