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Panel defends BPL cut-off
The Planning Commission has defended the poverty line cut-off and urged the Supreme Court not to “interfere with the methodology developed by experts over the years to estimate the incidence of poverty.”

However, it left a window for the court to direct an upward revision of the limit —daily consumption expenses per head of Rs 20 in urban areas and Rs 15 in rural areas at 2004-2005 prices — saying “these amounts could be significantly higher if updated to reflect price rise since 2004-2005”.

The top court has repeatedly urged the Centre to raise the limit to allow more people to benefit from the public distribution system but the government has been reluctant. At its last hearing, the court asked the Planning Commission to explain the cap.

In its affidavit read out by solicitor-general Gopal Subramanium, the Planning Commission said the problem of the “undisputedly poor” being left out of the BPL (below poverty line) list in many states could be solved by ensuring that the “undeserving” do not get it. “There is no arbitrariness in the Planning Commission’s methods,” he said.

The Centre is responsible for providing highly subsidised foodgrain to those below the poverty line. Beyond that, state governments have to share responsibility, he said.

The affidavit said the central cap of 37.2 per cent assistance to states was justified. Since the national poverty estimates were at 37.2 per cent, central assistance and allocation was limited to this extent, the affidavit said. “In any system of entitlement that is not universal, there has to be a cap,” it said.

The court has been asking the government to raise the limit to take population increase into account.

The Planning Commission said this would stand revised when the data from the next National Sample Survey on expenditure patterns comes in and is applied to the 2011 census.

Colin Gonsalves, the counsel for the non-government organisation PUCL that has sought the court’s intervention to address shortcomings in the public distribution system, said the BPL definition was “shocking”. “It is the same story packaged all over again,” he said.

Gonsalves drew the court’s attention to reports of wheat being burnt in Punjab, saying the government would “export it, burn it, but can’t give it to the poor to address malnourishment”.

A three-judge bench, headed by Justice Dalveer Bhandari, then insisted that the government at least give away foodgrain that it cannot store.