Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today urged the Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh to allow Punjab to conduct its Below Poverty Line (BPL) survey from August 15 this year. In a letter to Ramesh, the chief minister informed that Punjab was heading for elections some time during January/February 2012 and therefore it would not be possible to conduct BPL survey two months prior to the elections.
Badal further pointed out that Government of India (GoI) had recently enhanced BPL percentage for the state of Punjab from 8.5 per cent to 21per cent, based on the recommendations of the Tendulkar Committee.
The actual survey was scheduled to be held from November 2011. Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL), a GoI enterprise would provide 13,000 hand held devices and 13,000 operators for this BPL survey, added the Chief Minister.
