Plan panel’s formula reduced BPL families by 10 lakh: CM

Newindpress, 31st March, 2008

Monday March 31 2008 12:51 IST
ENS

BHUBANESWAR: Criticising the Centre for always ignoring the interests of Orissa, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said that after the Planning Commission adopted the Adjusted Share Formula, the number of below poverty line (BPL) families was reduced by 10 lakh.Talking to mediapersons after returning from New Delhi on Sunday, the Chief Minister said that he had raised the issue at the meeting of the NDA chief ministers held at the residence of leader of the Opposition LK Advani. Naveen raised various instances of Centre’s neglect of Orissa.The Chief Minister said that deleting 10 lakh families from the BPL list will have great impact on the implementation of poverty alleviation programmes in the State. He said that with the addition of 10 percent of the transient poor to the number of BPL families arrived at on the basis of 2002 census, the number of BPL families of the State should be 41.56 lakh. He demanded immediate acceptance of this by the Centre.Naveen criticised the Centre for curtailing Central assistance under different schemes. He said that before the eight KBK (Koraput, Balangir and Kalahandi) districts were included under the Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF), the allocation for KBK districts under the Revised Long Term Action Plan (RLTAP) was Rs 250 crore per annum. But after the inclusion of the eight districts under the BRGF, special allocation under the RLTAP has been reduced by Rs 120 crore per annum.The Chief Minister also referred to the substantial reduction in allocation under the Central share of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) to Rs 525 crore during the current year from Rs 775 crore during the previous financial year. In spite of demands from the districts for more funds, the same has not been provided even though the financial year is going to close.Naveen said that Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, whom he met recently, had promised to release Rs 200 crore for implementation of the scheme. However, this is yet to be done, he added.