Every time her 6-year-old son asks her when she would buy him a pair of shoes instead of the borrowed ones he always gets to wear, Indu makes yet another false promise and consoles him again. For 38-year-old Indu’s son, getting his own shoes is like a dream, whose realisation doesn’t seem to be anytime soon.
Working as a cleaner at a house, Indu along with his husband earn around `100 per day. She says her son grumps about his torn shoes every day after coming back from school.
“I am tired of making false promises. You know a cup of tea without milk costs `3 less than with milk. We never have tea with milk…we can’t afford it,” she says.
Indu has three children and so the family of five makes ends meet somehow.
She says she has a list of grievances with the government and cannot forgive it for being insensitive to the plight of the poor.
“Will they question how much we spend in a day? Will that decide if we are poor or not? Do we question the government on its spending or how rich get richer,” she says.
Distraught by the news that she might not be enlisted in the BPL list because there are days when she spends more than `32, she said, “The government does not want to wipe poverty but the poor.” In its affidavit on Below Poverty Line cap to the Supreme Court, the Planning Commission had said only those individuals whose consumption was less than `32 per day in urban areas and `26 in rural areas will be treated as poor. The capping of poor households, who qualify for BPL cards for availing themselves of subsidised foodgrains by the Planning Commission, has forced states to identify only as many poor households as “permitted,” leading to arbitrariness in the selection, and the exclusion of several. The underlying issue has been the government’s desire to project a reduction in poverty line. In May, the Supreme Court had asked the Planning Commission why there should be a cap on the number of beneficiaries under BPL list. From the earlier cap of `20/`15 a day four months ago, the planners sought to up it to `32/`26.