NUMBER OF POOR IN GUJARAT JUMPS BY 39.06% IN 12 YEARS KapilDave : Gandhinagar, Wed Jul 04 2012, 09:46 hrs The number of poor families in Gujarats villages have risen by at least 30 per cent over the last decade, going by the state governments own data. In April 2000, there were 23.29 lakh Below Poverty Line (BPL) families in the villages. The number rose to 30.49 lakh as on June 26, 2012, as per the dynamic list which the state rural development commissioners office constantly updates. According to the list, which is based on a survey of 78.06 lakh families living in villages, the increase in the number of poor families in villages was 39.06% in percentage terms. The highest number of poor families were in the tribal districts of Narmada (72.45%), Dahod (71.75%), Dangs (70.14%) and the Panchmahals (50.73%), followed by Banaskantha (48.52%), Valsad(48%), Vadodara (46.66%), Surendranagar (46.5%), Bharuch (46.02), Anand (45.65%), Patan (42.14%), Kheda (42.05%), Surat (40.79%), Ahmedabad(40.56%), Kutch(35.13%), Sabarkantha(32.87%), Mehsana (30.74%), Navsari (28.33%), Amreli (27.62%), Rajkot (27.5%), Porbandar (24.09%), Bhavnagar (22.46%), Jamnagar (22.38%), Gandhinagar (20.58%) and Junagadh (19.5%). These figures belie claims about Garib Kalyan Melas launched by Chief Minister Narendra Modi in 2009 to alleviate poverty. Government sources said 822 such functions have been held so far where benefits of various central and state schemes worth Rs 10000 crore have reached 70 lakh poor people. These included bicyles, homes under the Indira Awas Yojana and the Sardar housing scheme, tool kits, solar cooker, widow pensions, scholarships etc. In all, there are 39.67 lakh BPL families in Gujarat of which more than 9.17 lakh BPL families are in urban areas. The survey is based on the parameters of the 2002-03 socio-economic survey, which assigns a 0-4 score to the families against their size of land holding, type of house, average availability of normal clothing, type of indebtedness, food security, sanitation, consumer items, literacy status, status of the household labour force, status of children, means of livelihood, reason for migration, preference of assistance, dependent ladies and handicapped family members. A lower score means enhanced eligibility for a family to be issued a BPL card. For instance, a family with no land scores zero while a family with more than five hectares of irrigated land gets a 4. Similarly, the scores are assigned against other parameters. However, Neeta Hardikar, executive director of Anandi, an NGO working for food safety and rights of the poor, says the present 16-point criteria and faulty schemes planned on the basis of that are leading to wrong figures. archive.indianexpress/news/number-of-poor-in-gujarat-jumps-by-39.06--in-12-years/970191/2 Like · · Share · about an hour ago ·
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 13:56:52 +0000
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