Jaswan-Pragpur MLA Bikram Thakur has accused the state government of launching a systematic drive to remove genuine and underprivileged families from the Below Poverty Line (BPL) list during the ongoing 18-month survey. In a statement, Thakur alleged that around 1.60 lakh deserving and eligible families had been excluded from the BPL list during the selection process. He claimed that though the Central Government had fixed a target of 282,370 BPL beneficiaries for Himachal, the government had failed to achieve it due to repeated changes in the eligibility criteria.
He alleged that the bureaucracy was dominating the functioning of the state government, which, under the guise of poverty alleviation programmes, had launched a campaign to remove thousands of poor families from the BPL list. He claimed that there was an organised bid to deprive genuine beneficiaries of welfare schemes and the state government had issued eight notifications amending the criteria for the selection of BPL beneficiaries, creating confusion among the public.
Thakur said that the government lacked a consistent policy and repeated changes in the selection norms were forcing poor families to make repeated visits to government offices and spend thousands of rupees on obtaining the required certificates, only to find themselves declared ineligible later. “It is surprising that under the revised criteria, any family having an adult male member between the ages of 27 and 59 years has been rendered ineligible for inclusion in the BPL list,” he alleged.
The MLA alleged that the powers of gram sabhas, which were best acquainted with the ground realities, had been curtailed and transferred to Sub-Divisional Magistrates and Block Development Officers.
