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While a national list of the actual number of poor in India, based on the socio-economic CASTE survey, is expected to be released shortly, 38 per cent of rural and 16 per cent of urban households currently possess 'below poverty line' (BPL) cards, according to a new report from the Ministry of
Statistics and Programme Implementation. BPL cards are given to households below the poverty line to give them access to subsidised food through the public distribution system (PDS). Further, five per cent of rural and two per cent of urban households have Antyodaya ration cards.
The report, based on the 68th national sample survey round carried out during 2011-12, finds that 56 per cent of households employed as casual labour in agriculture possessed BPL cards. The proportion of households possessing Antyodaya was the highest for casual labour in agriculture and non-agriculture households.
Interestingly, households with the lowest levels of land ownership had the highest proportion of households with no ration card, estimated at 21 per cent. The possession of Antyodaya as well as BPL cards was seen to fall with increase in size of land possessed.
In both rural and urban areas, the possession of BPL cards was relatively high in the states of Andhra Pradesh (85 per cent rural, 49 per cent urban), Karnataka (64 per cent rural, 29 per cent urban) and Chhattisgarh (59 per cent rural, 33 per cent urban).
The report also estimates that 46 per cent of rural and 23 per cent of urban households purchased rice through PDS. However, the PDS share in total household rice consumption was roughly 28 per cent in the rural areas and about 20 per cent in urban areas. This suggests that PDS is unable to meet the basic household requirements and households are increasingly relying on markets to buy rice.
Purchase of rice from the PDS in the rural areas was observed to be the highest in Tamil Nadu (89 per cent), followed closely by Andhra Pradesh (87 per cent), Kerala (78 per cent) and Karnataka (75 per cent). In urban areas, states with the highest proportion were Tamil Nadu (67 per cent) followed by Kerala (61 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (about 45 per cent) and Chhattisgarh (42 per cent).
A similar trend is observed in wheat. At the all-India level, the proportion of households purchasing wheat through PDS stood at 34 per cent in rural areas and 19 per cent in urban areas. But the share of PDS in overall wheat consumption was 17.3 per cent in the rural sector and 10.1 per cent in the urban.
Purchase of wheat in rural areas was observed to be the highest in Maharashtra (40 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (36 per cent), and Gujarat (32 per cent). In urban areas, Madhya Pradesh (23 per cent) reported the highest incidence of purchase.
In the case of kerosene, 76 per cent of rural households and 30 per cent of urban households reported purchasing kerosene from PDS, while 22 per cent rural households and 16 per cent urban households reported buying kerosene from other sources.
