Ten Karnataka legislators figure in BPL list

Ten legislators of Karnataka including two former Ministers were erroneously brought under the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category during a survey carried out by the State Government recently.

Sharing this information with the reporters, Karnataka’s Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Govind Karjol said the Government officials had issued BPL cards, meant for purchase of food grains at a subsidized rate, even to former Ministers like B A Jivijaya and Bopaiah, besides legislator H D Basavaraj.

“These legislators themselves brought the matter to my notice and returned the BPL cards”, Karjol said while acknowledging loopholes in the survey, which had been conducted to identify the income levels of people for the purpose of distribution of ration cards.

Karjol reporters that these lapses had led to bungling all over the state including in his own assembly constituency of Mudhol in North Karnataka. “Above Poverty Line (APL) cards had been issued to labourers in a Dalit colony while officials and rich persons in upmarket localities have been given BPL cards”, he lamented.

The Government had begun a fresh survey BPL survey after it was found that 1.6 million ration cards that were in use in the state were bogus ones. The bogus cards accounted for 20 per cent of the total ration cards in the State. “The number of families that had obtained BPL cards was more than the actual number of people living in poverty in Karnataka”, Govind Karjol said.

Many eligible families had been denied BPL cards because they had moved from villages to urban areas during the time of the survey.

BPL cards are issued to impoverished families to procure their monthly quota of food grains at a subsidized rate.