Agency to probe BPL beneficiary spike: Haryana
Haryana will get the income “self-declaration” data of the below poverty line (BPL) beneficiaries verified from an independent agency, asserted Minister of State for Food, Civil Supplies Rajesh Nagar today.
The Aadhaar-enabled data of the department showed that a “comparatively prosperous” Haryana had added nearly 75 lakh BPL beneficiaries between December 2022 and November 2024.
Editorial: Inflated BPL data?
“I will talk to Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini on the issue and we will certainly find a way out of this imbroglio,” Nagar told The Tribune in an interview.
As a public welfare measure, the Citizen Resource Information Department (CRID) had started accepting “self-declaration” from BPL beneficiaries without any independent verification for BJP government’s Parivar Pehchan Patra project in July 2024, he asserted.
The minister expressed surprise at the surge in enrolment under the category. While the number of beneficiaries was pegged at 1.24 crore in 2022, it jumped to over 1.98 crore in 2024 — putting nearly 70 per cent of state’s 2.8 crore population under the BPL category. Crediting BJP’s hat-trick in the state Assembly elections to saffron party’s “silent voters” as against Congress’ “vocal supporters”, Nagar alleged that rampant factionalism proved to be the opposition party’s Achilles’ heel.
“The Congress is a ship without a captain,” quipped Nagar when asked about the grand old party going to the Vidhan Sabha session tomorrow without declaring the Congress Legislature Party leader.
Asserting that Faridabad was set to emerge as another Gurugram in Delhi’s periphery in view of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), the MLA from Tigaon said several mega projects would change Faridabad’s face in years to come.
