Hindu nation page:
Brinda: why exclude the disabled from BPL?
Aarti Dhar
NEW DELHI: Brinda Karat, Rajya Sabha member and Communist Party of India
(Marxist) Polit Bureau member, has protested against non-inclusion of disabled
persons in the automatic inclusion category for the 2011 below the poverty line
(BPL) census being conducted by the Rural Development Ministry.
In a letter to Rural Development Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, she has drawn
attention to the May 2, 2003 Supreme Court order, in which the disabled have
been listed in the automatic inclusion category for Antodaya benefits which
means the "poorest of the poor." Instead of implementing the court order, the
BPL census questionnaire has a one-point reference to the disabled and is
framed in such a way as to ensure that families with a disabled member do not
get a score.
"The question is whether it is a household with any disabled member and no
able-bodied adult member? It is wrong to link the entitlements of a disabled
child or adult with [the question] whether there is an able-bodied member in
the household or not." In most cases there would certainly be an able-bodied
member, the most obvious being the mother, she has pointed out.
In most of rural India disabled persons are entirely dependent on their
families which will have to incur an additional expenditure for their
well-being. "It is cruel and unjust, therefore, to deny them the BPL cards. In
fact, disabled persons and the family they live with should be automatically
included in the BPL category on the understanding that those middle class
families who do not require it will exclude themselves." Ms. Karat has said.
In fact, most of the questions are an affront to the large majority who are
comprised of the working poor, she says. Although the census design has been
simplified compared to 2002, it still retains the ranking system for the
majority of the rural population through seven questions on a scale of 0-7,
where 7 represents the most poor. The Planning Commission has given each State
a "quota" or "cap" on the numbers of those who are to be officially recognised
as being eligible for the BPL cards. The ranking system is basically to enable
the State governments to fix a cut-off in counting the poor to fit into these
highly dubious "caps." It depends not on whether a particular family is poor or
not but on whether there are families which are worse off, in which case the
"less poor" family will not be counted as poor.
An easily verifiable small automatic exclusion category with the rest of the
population recognised as being eligible for entitlements would be far more
just, says Ms. Karat.
With thanks and regards
(Rajesh Asudani)
Assistant General Manager
Reserve Bank of India
Nagpur
Cell: 9420397185
o: +91 712 2806846
R: 2591349
"The path from dreams to success does exist. May you have the vision to find
it, the courage to get on to it, and
the perseverance to follow it. Wishing you great journey."
-Kalpana Chawla
(An excert from the e-mail Kalpana sent to the students of Punjab Engineering
College from aboard Columbia.)
"The path from dreams to success does exist. May you have the vision to find
it, the courage to get on to it, and
the perseverance to follow it. Wishing you great journey."
-Kalpana Chawla
(An excert from the e mail sent from Columbia
-mail Kalpana sent to the students of Punjab Engineering College from aboard
Columbia.)
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