Backward classes hold most BPL cards

A government survey shows that the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) possess the most number of Below Poverty Line (BPL) ration cards in India, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jul 12, 2007, 02:35:48 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A government survey released on Wednesday shows that the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) possess the most number of Below Poverty Line (BPL) ration cards in India.

The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) found that 42 per cent of the OBC population in rural India and 35 per cent in urban India possess ration cards, indicating their financial status.

BPL ration cards are issued on the basis of a certain annual income fixed by the state governments on basis of the state quota earmarked by the Centre. "But the figures indicate that a huge population of OBCs are not financially sound," a government official said.

Scheduled Castes in rural areas are no better. About 22 per cent of them avail BPL card facilities, which is about five percentage points more than their share in the country's population. However, they are much better in urban areas with only 16 per cent of SCs owning a BPL card.

In a similar comparison done for the poorest of poor ration cards, called Antyodaya cards, OBCs fare better than SCs and STs. About five per cent of STs and 4.5 per cent of SCs in rural areas have Antyodaya cards as compared to just two per cent OBCs. Urban areas do not have many Antyodaya cardholders. "This shows that despite reservation for SC and STs, the majority in the lowest financial strata of the society are from these two sections," an official said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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