Monday, January 14, 2013

Ministry of Housing And Urban Poverty Alleviation came up with new benchmark to identify Urban poor

As the socio-economic census is going on across the country, the ministry is working on a mechanism according to which urban poor will be defined according to people’s vulnerabilities.  According to new guidelines the urban poor will now be identified on the basis of social, economic and occupational vulnerabilities. The move comes as the ministry is finding it difficult to identify beneficiaries in metropolises and other cities, where few families earn below the BPL cutoff while many of them live in vulnerable conditions. It has also been noticed that income certificates are forged or are being procured after bribing officials.

As of now, families earning below Rs 4,824 a month are put in the bracket of urban poor.

Under the mechanism, families will be divided into two groups — those automatically included the other automatically excluded -- in the poverty bracket.

Those automatically included in the poverty bracket will be the homeless and jobless. Automatically excluded will be families with a pakka house, motor vehicle or electronic appliances such as air-conditioner or refrigerator.

Based on data from the caste census, families will be graded and assigned points according to their needs. If a family scores very high on the housing vulnerability index, it would be given priority under slum upgradation schemes and Rajiv Awas Yojana.

The new formula will help in identifying poor in terms of vulnerabilities and government schemes will target the vulnerable group. It will result in better targeting. 

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