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...

Gujarat government has launched a separate unique identity (UID) project for every individual residing in the state, finding that the Government of India`s UID project under top I-T honcho Nandan Nilekani is still largely on paper. Under this project, every individual living in Gujarat will have a separate UID number, which will feature several details-whether the person is below poverty line (bpl) or above poverty line (APL), and whether he pays...

50 lakh tonnes of rice and wheat for all States/Union Territories at bpl prices Need to strike a balance between excess procurement and storage: Justice Bhandari ‘Whatever you procure, store it properly. The rest you can distribute to starving people' Responding to the concern expressed by the Supreme Court over malnutrition and starvation deaths, the Centre on Tuesday informed it of the decision to make an additional allocation of 50 lakh tonnes of...

An urban Indian spending a penny more than Rs 578 a month – roughly Rs 20 a day – on all his basic needs cannot be termed poor and would not receive social benefits and subsidies given by the Centre to bpl citizens, the Planning Commission has said. The commission told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that a city dweller cannot be termed poor if his average monthly spends exceed Rs...

Govt orders 600,000 hand-held electronic devices to reduce scope for error and expedite the census process For the first time, the census to identify below poverty line (bpl) families will be conducted using hand-held electronic devices. The initiative of the rural development ministry is expected to reduce scope for error and expedite the census process. The identification of bpl households is critical for individuals to be eligible for welfare programmes such as getting...