New Delhi: Accusing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of having little knowledge of the level of poverty in the country, BJP on Saturday demanded an immediate meeting of all chief ministers and leaders of various political parties to discuss the issue of revised BPL benchmark.
"The issue of poverty is too important to be left to the Planning Commission or Prime Minister, as neither the Prime Minister nor the Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission have any idea of real poverty. They rarely go to villages and interact with the poor," BJP leader Yashwant Sinha said.
He said their lack of knowledge of the prevailing poverty in the country had been exposed by the revised benchmark for BPL families which excludes those earning Rs 32 in urban and Rs 26 in rural areas from the category.
"Both these economists stand fully exposed through the laughable affidavit (setting new BPL benchmark) filed in the Supreme Court by the Planning Commission, with the approval of Prime Minister," he said.
"The BJP totally rejects the affidavits filed by the Planning Commission with regard to defining BPL and calls upon the government to immediately convene a meeting of state Chief Ministers and political party representatives and discuss the issue in detail," he said.
Sinha said the meeting should discuss in detail the definition of below poverty line and identifying its beneficiaries, besides various reports on the BPL issue.
"This is leading to such unrest in the rural areas, which you can't even imagine sitting here. There is a furore in the rural areas on the issue of below poverty line," Sinha said.
He also alleged that a large chunk of the poor which are on the margins are not included in the below poverty line category, thus leading to this unrest.
The BJP leader also lamented, "the saddest part is that even after 64 years of Independence we have not arrived at a satisfactory definition of poverty."
The former Finance Minister also charged the Planning Commission with putting a cap on the BPL beneficiaries, due to which the real poor were not getting the benefits of BPL schemes evolved by the Central and State Governments.
"In order to keep its expenditure down and the Plan allocations within limits, the Planning Commission puts a cap on this. Every district and state has a quota for the poor.
Even if you identify the real poor, they still don't get BPL benefits as they don't come under this quota," he said.
"That cap is entirely untenable, because you either have poverty line or you don't have one," he said.
Sinha said the Government has again mocked at poor through the affidavit it filed in Supreme Court on September 20, 2011, where Planning Commission states that anyone who spends more than Rs 32 a day in urban areas or Rs 26 a day in rural areas will not be considered as poor and will not get BPL benefits.
This affidavit, he said, was filed in response to May 14 Supreme Court order advising the Commission to update its BPL norms to reflect prices as in May 2011, as the Commission had quoted a figure of Rs 20 and Rs 15 respectively for urban and rural areas.
Quoting the N C Saxena Committee of Ministry of Rural Development, the former Finance Minister said, "per centage of rural population that is poor is far greater than present cut-off line of 28.3 per cent. The Committee had recommended that per centage of people entitled to BPL status be drastically revised upwards to at least 50 per cent."
Sinha added that the World Bank poverty estimates of 41.6 per cent are based on the world poverty line of US Dollar 1.25 per capita per day at 2005 prices.
He said according to Planning Commission a person can live comfortably with a family of four in a big city in about Rs 3,860 per month, which would include expenditure on not only food but also on house rent, conveyance, education and health, clothing, footwear and other personal items.
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