Polls to delay BPL survey

Manipur and Uttar Pradesh have not even begun the enumeration exercise. While Uttar Pradesh had indicated that it will start the exercise in February,now it’s hardly possible with the state going to polls in that month.

The polls will get over by March 4. The new state governments will then take some time to settle in and take control of the administration for this crucial exercise. Given that Punjab has almost completed its enumeration work,and other states are relatively smaller ones where the exercise can be completed in less time,the delay caused by the elections in Uttar Pradesh appears to have sent the Union Rural Development Ministry’s plans of completing the BPL survey for rural areas by April,2012 for a toss. According to the statistics available with the ministry,about four lakh enumeration blocks in Uttar Pradesh comprise nearly 16 per cent of the total enumeration blocks across the country.

As per statistics available with the ministry,the enumeration exercise for the BPL survey has not yet begun in as many as 15 states/ Union territories that account for about 60 per cent of total enumeration blocks identified for the purpose.

The delay in enumeration is crucial,because the Central government has already announced that the data from the BPL survey would be analysed before arriving at the composition of the ‘priority’ and ‘general’ groups of beneficiaries under the proposed food security law.

The delay has alarmed Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh,who is learnt to have personally decided to coordinate the entire exercise that needs collaboration of the state governments and technical support provided by the Central PSUs such as BEL,ITI and ECIL.