The Planning Commission has accepted the Suresh Tendulkar Committee report on the scale of poverty in India, it is learnt. Confusion and differences over the number of persons falling below poverty line (BPL) have been a stumbling block for the proposed Food Security Bill.
In an internal meeting of its members on Saturday, the Planning Commission decided to go with the BPL figures contained in the Tendulkar Committee report. With this, people BPL would rise to 37.2% of the total population from around 27% earlier, thereby increasing the number of beneficiaries of the new legislation.
About a week ago, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of Planning Commission, had backed the Tendulkar Committee report. He had told reporters, “I think the recommendation made by the report regarding the higher number of people that need to be covered under the BPL schemes is reasonable.” He had added that the Planning Commission would review the report soon.
Till now, the number of BPL card holders, according to the Planning Commission estimates based on 2005-05 survey, was pegged at 6.5 crore. After adopting the report’s recommendations, the BPL card holders will increase a little over 8 crore. According to Ahluwalia, on accepting the Tendulkar Committee’s recommendations, the increase in the food subsidy bill would be around Rs6,000 crore. Food subsidy for the current year is pegged at Rs55,780 crore.
The government has been in a dilemma over the number of beneficiaries under its ambitious Food Security Bill. While an empower group of ministers’ meeting headed by FM Pranab Mukherjee had cleared the draft of the bill with the number of BPL cardholders at 6.5 crore, the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi wanted the poverty numbers reworked to include more people in the scheme. The Planning Commission was given the task to arrive at a figure that could be used to enact the Food Security law.
The Plan panel members had met once last week on the subject when the issue had remained unresolved due to differences among the members on accepting the Committee report.
