Electricity bill limit up for BPL eligibility criteria

The government has changed one of the criteria for those Below the Poverty Line (BPL) and increased the condition of lower limit of electricity bill from Rs 9,000 per annum to Rs 20,000 per annum.

Government sources said the government had got serious about the increasing number of BPL families, which have grown dramatically in the past two years. At present, about 70% of the population is under BPL category in the state.

The sources said the government could also resume the physical verification of BPL families for authentic data. “Till now, there was no verification and self-declaration of income was sufficient to get a family enrolled in the BPL category,” they said.

“However, it’s going to change soon. Data related to property, crop production registered on Meri Fasal Mera Byora portal, benefits taken by a family, electricity details, etc., are being linked to the Parivar Pehchan Patra (family ID). With the linkage of these details, those who fail to meet the BPL criteria will be automatically struck off from the list. It will happen very soon,” said an official.

Abhishek Bansal, an official of the Citizen Resources Information Department (CRID), Hisar, admitted that the electricity bill limit for the benefit of the BPL had been increased to Rs 20,000 per annum.

Meanwhile, a calculation of the BPL families in Haryana as per the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department indicated that a huge volume of food grain, edible oil and sugar was being distributed to BPL beneficiaries.

The department has a provision of providing 5 kg per person food grain to each BPL family member. With 1,98,90,964 members of 51,72,267 BPL families in Haryana, about 10 lakh quintals of food grain (wheat/bajra) was being distributed under the PDS free of cost every month in the state.

As per data of 51,72,267 families, each family gets 2 litres of subsidised mustard oil at a cost of Rs 40 and 1 kg sugar at a cost of Rs 13.5 per kg.