Question : Identification of BPL

(a) whether the Government has fixed any criterion to identify the people living Below Poverty Line (BPL) and if so, the details thereof along with the definition of poverty line for availing benefits under welfare schemes;

(b) whether the Government has set up or proposes to set up any mechanism involving non-political persons/ organisations for this purpose in each State/ city and if so, the steps taken to provide its benefit to all the persons;

(c) whether any survey has been conducted to ascertain the number of BPL families in the country;

(d) if so, the details and the outcome thereof indicating the number of BPL families, State/UT-wise;

(e) the date when the last survey was conducted in this regard; and

(f) whether any targets have been fixed regarding upliftment of BPL people above poverty line and if so, the details thereof and the achievements made therein?

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT
(SHRI RAM KRIPAL YADAV)

(a) to (f): The Ministry of Rural Development provided technical and financial support to States/Union Territories for conducting combined Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) in 2011 to rank rural households on identified socio economic parameters. SECC 2011 (Rural) provides data on households regarding various aspects of their Socio Economic status –viz housing, landholding / landlessness , educational status, status of women, differently abled, occupation, position of assets, SC/ST households , incomes, etc. SECC-2011 (Rural) data captures respondent based disclosures on socio -economic status of 17.97 crore rural households which has allowed automatic exclusion of 07.07 crore (39.34 %) of households as not poor on the basis of 13 parameters, automatic inclusion of 0.16 crore (0.89 %) households as poorest of the poor on the basis of 5 parameters and grading of deprivation of 8.73 crore (48.58%) of rural households on the basis of seven parameters. Statewise details are placed at Annexure.

Beneficiaries under Programmes /Schemes of the Government are selected on the basis of system generated priority list as per the criteria of the selection of beneficiaries in Programme/Schemes. The list is verified by ground trothing in Gram Sabha. A system of claims/objections on system generated list has been instituted by respective State Governments/UT Administrations for verification by District Authorities to obviate exclusion and inclusion errors. The Validation of eligibility and beneficiary is also conducted, in whichever Programme /Scheme feasible, by IT enabled instruments including geo-tagging, date and time stamping, Aadhaar , mobile, bank account etc.