'Inflated income' in Parivar Pahchan Patra denies benefits to needy in Haryana

Even as the grievances related to family identity cards, known as Parivar Pahchan Patra (PPP), forced the government to organise special camps before the Assembly polls, the problem still persists as incomes of the affected had been shown inflated in the document, which is the basis for identification of the below the poverty line (BPL) families.

While the actual needy families remains high and dry, the state government data reveals that about 70 per cent of the population of Haryana is bracketed as BPL, apparently due to declaration of less than actual income by a large number of families.

Bedridden daily wager not on rolls

Shish Pal, 60, a daily wager from Bahbalpur village in Hisar, has been shown to have an income of Rs 3 lakh per annum. Shishpal, who has his son Naveen and wife in the family of three, has been bedridden for some time due to ailments

Another villager, Suresh Kumar, who is also daily wager and has a family of four, has also alleged that he had been denied the BPL benefits on account of inflated income

Shish Pal, 60, a daily wager from Bahbalpur village in Hisar, has been shown income of Rs 3 lakh per annum. Shishpal, who has his son Naveen and wife in the family of three, has been bedridden for some time due to ailments.

“My son is a daily wager and learning to work as an electrician at a private shop. I don’t know why the government has shown this much income in my PPP. If I can earn even Rs 1 lakh per annum of the stated annual income, I would be more than happy,” he said, adding that he had visited the offices several time and was promised to make amends in my PPP, but to no avail. “I have given up on my efforts now”, he said.

Another resident of the same village, Suresh Kumar, who has a family of four members, is also a daily wager, who owns four kanals which barely produce grain sufficient to feed the family. “My family was issued the BPL about three years ago. But then my income went up suddenly in the government records and my name was struck off from the BPL rolls,” he said.

Kumar said when he visited the office in the subdivisional town of Barwala, an electricity bill of Rs 14,000 was cited as the reason for the elimination from the BPL list. “It was a mistake by the Electricity Department which I got corrected later on. But I was not included in the BPL list despite all my efforts,” he said.

Ajit Balmiki, a resident of Satrod village, too, complained that despite repeated attempts he was denied the BPL benefit. “I am ready for any kind of verification and scrutiny from the government,” he said.

Krishan Satrod, a former zila parishad member, alleged that there were a number of needy families which had been excluded from the BPL list due to the fault of officials.

Additional Deputy Commissioner C Jayasharadha said: "There is a provision for the complainants to raise the issue with the nearby Common Service Centres (CSC). But as of now, no special camps are being organised in the districts for this purpose.”

The state government had organised special camps across the state to correct the mistakes mentioned in the PPP after there were a lot of complaints of mistakes like wrong names, incorrect relations and inflated incomes of the families. The state government on July 22 also announced that it resolved 91 percent of the grievances regarding the PPP received in the 'Samadhan Shivirs' organised across the state.