Objecting to the Planning Commission's poverty estimates and worried about the outcome of a case pending before the Supreme Court, the UPA government on Thursday underlined the need for reworking the BPL (Below the poverty line) cap in a bid to do away with any kind of cap, which has become a matter of controversy. Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh shot off an eight page e-mail letter to the Deputy Chairman...
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Revolt in plan panel over BPL cap
-The Times of India Two Planning Commission members, Abhijeet Sen and Mihir Shah, came out in revolt on Wednesday against the panel’s affidavit to the Supreme Court that those spending Rs 32 a day in urban areas or Rs 26 a day in villages would no longer be deemed poor by the government. Sen and Shah told TOI that the Planning Commission had avoided answering the critical question that the SC had...
More »Now Planning Commission thinks there is confusion over poverty line by Gargi Parsai
-The Hindu Faced with strong reactions to its affidavit on the poverty line estimates filed in the Supreme Court on Monday, the Planning Commission may re-visit the issue and, if necessary, file an amendment in the court. Sources in the Commission indicated that another committee of experts was likely to be set up to dispel the “confusion” and arrive at a more realistic estimate of poverty numbers that were “multi-dimensional” and to...
More »A cunning Plan by Indrajit Hazra
I hear that the Planning Commission is planning to push the poverty line down a few notches so that a lot of folks can now come out bobbing up to the surface. This is being considered not out of some malicious attempt to make really poor people look just plain poor so that the real estate price in your area goes up that wee bit, but to “ensure the adequacy...
More »Place progress reports on PDS schemes: HC to govt
-The Times of India The Gujarat high court (HC) on Thursday asked the state government to specify what steps it has taken to implement the schemes that are introduced to make the public distribution system (PDS) effective. This status report is in connection with an order passed last year. In 2010, the HC had asked the state government to implement various schemes like Antyodaya Anna Yojana, Targeted Public Distribution System, Annapurna Scheme,...
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