Caste census should aid other schemes too

The caste-based socio-educational survey of the more than six crore population of Karnataka provides a good opportunity for creating a much-needed single database on all households.

Hopefully, the data will be held by the state government’s planning department for the purpose of planning and budgeting but it will be accessible to all departments at a common portal for identification of beneficiaries for various schemes.

Defining the criteria for deciding who is poor, identifying them and delivering the benefits of various government schemes to them are all currently mired in contradictions, confusion and often chaos.

Bhagyamma (name changed), for instance, though obviously poor, has not received a Below Poverty Line (BPL) ration card from the Food Department even two years after applying for one, which has disentitled her to rations under the PDS.     

The lack of a BPL card from the food department has made Bhagyamma’s girl child ineligible for the Bhagyalakshmi scheme of the Department of Women & Children’s Development (DW&CD).

The scheme would have entitled the girl child to Rs one lakh when she turned 18 years. Similarly, Bhagyamma does not get free services at government hospitals as a BPL ration card is mandatory for free service.

Some other departments have their own income criteria to identify the poor for their schemes. The revenue department has an annual household income limit of about Rs 24,000 as criterion for deciding who is eligible for the old-age, widow  and disability pensions.  

The DW&CD, on the other hand, has Rs.10,000 annual household income as criterion for one of its girl child scholarships, while the social welfare department has Rs 2 lakh  for the SC/ST scholarship.

Standardising poverty line criteria to avoid confusion due to illogical or differing criteria appears imperative. The socio-educational survey provides a unique opportunity to gather all the data required for developing the UN’s Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for the entire state.

While the intended survey is capturing data on education levels and standard of living required for arriving at the MPI, the third parameter on health, such as on child stunting, child and maternal deaths appears to be missing.    

Karnataka will become a pioneer in the whole country if it adopts the internationally accepted poverty criteria for determining the poverty line for the state. Ideally, with the standardised, objective and digitised data-base, the computer can itself draw up lists of households who are eligible for various poverty alleviation schemes of the government.

It could do away with individuals/households running around in circles, knocking on the doors of several departments and standing in endless queues to procure and submit income, caste and age certificates, voter ID, Aadhaar and bank account numbers, and a myriad other documents to prove their eligibility.     

One hopes this single data-base will do away with each department doing its own surveys and house verifications to identify beneficiaries which results in subjectivity and human interference in deciding these lists. It should provide great relief to officials and citizens alike,  whose time, effort and money are spent in such futile and unproductive ways.  

Genuine beneficiaries

It should also overcome the problem of many genuine beneficiaries not receiving the benefits due to their lack of awareness about schemes which keep morphing into schemes with other names and acronyms with each change in government.

The data also needs to be available at various levels, beginning with the ward and gram panchayat (GP) to ward and GP-level planning. 

A big problem, especially in urban areas, is that people keep shifting their location and the database has to be dynamic to capture these shifts. Any change in address or status denies the poor whatever benefits they were receiving.

Several Bhagyalakshmi bonds have not been delivered due to beneficiaries changing their addresses. This prompted a supervisor in the DW&CD to ask anganwadi workers not to receive applications for the Bhagyalakshmi scheme from families living in rented premises as they are likely to shift  – an arbitrary decision totally against the provisions of the scheme.      

The onus of informing any change in the resident’s status, address, etc. could be placed on the resident himself. Only when delivery of all poverty alleviation benefits of various departments is through a single data-base and single window will the Bhagyammas of the world see some ’Bhagya’ in their lives.