2.66 Lakh families fall in the poverty line in Himachal Pradesh

 Himachal Pradesh Government informed on Monday that about 2,66,304 families fall in the Poverty line in the state.

Replying to a query raised by Dr. Janak Raj (Bharmaur) in the question hours Panchayati Raj Minister Anirudh Singh said that till January 15, 2024, the number of families below the poverty line in the state was  2.66,304.

He said that criteria for selection of BPL families in the state are based on the BPL Survey Guidelines 2002 issued by the Union Ministry of Rural Development in the 10th Five Year Plan (2002-07).

According to the guidelines issued by the state government, families cannot be included in the BPL list (Exclusion Criteria) who have more than 2 hectares of non-irrigated land or more than 1 hectare of irrigated land, have a large-sized permanent house,  pay income tax, and own four wheeler vehicles like car, motor, jeep, tractor, truck, and bus, etc.

He said that such families whose regular monthly income from salary, pension, honorarium, wage business, etc. is more than Rs 2500 per month and any member from the family is in a government job or non-government job, employed regularly or on contract.

 The Caste Census (Socio & Economic and Caste Census ) was conducted by the Government in 2022 and decided to use SECC data in all its programs like MNREGA, National Food Security Act, etc and data is used to identify beneficiaries and direct benefit transfer schemes. He said that work is also being done to expand it, however, no benefits are given to BPL families under any scheme of the Central Government.

The government said that the number of BPL families has almost unchanged( 2.60 lakh) in the three years
as 2,58,852 BPL families were identified in year 2020-21, 266,326 in 2021-22, and 2,65,588 in 2022-23
and 2,66,304 in 2023-24.