Government employees earning Rs 10,000 a month, people with electricity and water connections, bank accounts and LIC policies and those paying income-tax will be automatically excluded from the list of poor persons under new methodology for the 2010 BPL census.
A pilot study will be conducted across 260 select villages in July to test the new methodology before the nationwide BPL census. The last BPL census in 2002 pegged the number of poor households at 147 million and the number of poor persons in rural areas at 473 million.
An exact count of the poor is crucial for implementation of the UPA’s social welfare agenda, including the proposed Food Security Act. Other indicators under which people will be excluded from the BPL list are land or orchard ownership, possessing motorised agricultural equipment, running a business and owning a house.