Act strictly against misuse of BPL cards
Over 1.47 crore households comprising about 4.67 crore family members have BPL (Below Poverty Line) cards in Karnataka. In other words, 80 per cent of the state’s population falls below the poverty line. While the NITI Ayog, which puts this figure at 5.67 per cent, says the state’s poverty level is decreasing year on year, the number of BPL card holders is only increasing. So what explains this huge anomaly?
According to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who recently chaired a review meeting of the state’s administrative machinery, a majority of the beneficiaries have obtained BPL cards by suppressing their actual income. In addition, nearly three lakh applications for BPL cards are pending. The card, which aims at empowering the underprivileged and creating a more inclusive society, enables beneficiaries to obtain basic needs like food, healthcare, education, housing and employment.
The database also forms the basis for two of the government’s guarantee programmes, Anna Bhagya and Gruha Lakshmi, which have a budget outlay of Rs 8,000 crore and Rs 28,000 crore respectively. Unable to make ends meet, Siddaramaiah had presented a Rs 27,000 crore revenue deficit budget, while later increasing stamp duty and cess on fuel.
The Department of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs is responsible for issuing BPL cards based on certain socio-economic indicators. The government has been fighting a losing battle against bogus cards, as often the department includes beneficiaries under pressure from local elected representatives. In 2023, the department had collected a fine of Rs 13.5 crore from 4.6 lakh ineligible card holders, a majority of them government employees. Thousands of income tax payers and those owning luxury cars were also found to be in possession of these cards. Though the department had deleted over 6.17 lakh dead BPL members, the exercise is still incomplete.
The fact that so many bogus card holders exist explains why the government has failed to create an equitable society even after spending billions on social welfare schemes. With these schemes being cornered by the ineligible, the real intended beneficiaries, the poor and the downtrodden, are left high and dry.
No doubt, the gap between the rich and the poor only keeps widening. In 2010, the Supreme Court had directed that a warning be issued to all bogus card holders to surrender their cards within two weeks or face penal action. The directive remained largely on paper. Weeding out bogus cards should be a continuous process, but unless the government brings in legislation providing for criminal action against both the illegal card holders and the officers issuing it, there will be no end to the problem.