Pratap Keshari Deb

Bhubaneswar, July 24: The Odisha government has disputed modality of the Planning Commission’s latest survey, which says the proportion of the state’s poverty has come down from 57.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 32.6 per cent in 2011-12.

Food and consumer welfare minister Pratap Keshari Deb said: “The Planning Commission report is misleading. They have relied on sample survey and an estimate of purchasing power of people to draw their conclusions. But, so far welfare programmes are concerned, identification of poor should be done on the basis of door-to-door survey. Otherwise the level of poverty won’t be reflected accurately.”

Stating that such misleading reports had triggered a debate over distribution of subsidised rice in Odisha, Deb expressed apprehension that the conclusions, drawn by the country’s top planning body, might result in the reduction of Odisha’s rice quota from the Centre.

Sources said that following a dispute over the BPL survey conducted in 2002, the Centre has been allocating 35kg of rice to 27.76 lakh BPL families in Odisha at the subsidised price of Rs.6.43 per kilogram.

However, the Odisha government further subsidises the rice, making it available at Re 1-a-kg to 42.32 lakh families, which, according to its own estimates, are living below poverty line. Given its resource constraints, it has reduced the monthly quota per family from 35kg to 25kg, a move which has drawn criticism from the Congress-led Opposition. The Congress has launched a statewide agitation, filing police complaints against chief minister Naveen Patnaik and the food and consumer welfare minister accusing them of depriving the beneficiaries of their full quota of rice allotted by the Centre.

Odisha has also decided to oppose the UPA-sponsored Food Security Bill, apprehending that it might result in reduction of the state’s rice quota allocated by the Centre. Deb said the Odisha government had taken exception to the capping clause in the Bill as it would affect the welfare of the poor in a state like Odisha. “The same yardstick should not be followed in the case of all the states as realities differed from state to state,” he said.

Panchayati raj minister Kalpataru Das said: “We will be happy if the poverty rate in the state comes down. We are taking a number of steps to reduce the poverty. But, the fact remains that Odisha still lags behind many other states of the country as far as development is concerned.”

Interestingly, there have been discrepancies in the poverty figures provided by the Odisha government in the recent past. The governor in his speech, during the budget session of the Odisha Assembly in February, had claimed that poverty in Odisha had declined from 57.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 37 per cent in 2009-10. But, the Economic Survey of 2011-12 stated that the poverty ratio in the state in 2004-05 was 39.90 per cent.

Senior Congress leader Niranjan Patnaik said: “The Odisha government is totally confused on the issue of poverty. The fact is poverty level has come down because of the implementation of the central schemes in Odisha. Had the schemes been implemented with a little more sincerity, the results on the poverty front would have been even better.”