Ranchi: Five high-level meetings, four notifications, and yet no decision! This is what sums up the Jharkhand government’s much-talked about move to revise the list of families below poverty line (BPL).

Soon after taking over as the Chief Minister, Sibu Soren and his Deputies, Raghubar Das and Sudesh Mahato, at the first cabinet meeting on December 30 resolved to recast the list of BPL families. The move followed widespread apprehensions of large scale irregularities in the list.

In the meeting, it was decided that the list would be revised in a three-month time to make sure that the targeted people benefited from the scheme.

Accordingly, Deputy Commissioners, Block Development Officers and district units of the Civil Supplies Department were asked by Chief Secretary Shiv Basant to launch a comprehensive survey for the purpose. Thirteen-point criteria were also stipulated for automatic inclusion or exclusion of the families.

But, that initiative failed to fructify because of the procedural flaws on many counts. Acknowledging the fault, Mahato, who also holds the Rural Development portfolio, said the criteria basically created more confusion as it did not follow the Centre’s guidelines for the BPL families.

“People who have more than 2 acre land in a prime location and a monthly income of Rs 10,000 could have the BPL tag. This was illogical,” the Deputy CM said.

Prompted by severe criticism from the political as well as the bureaucratic circles, the Chief Secretary last week issued another communiqué to the concerned officers on the same issue.

Instead of simplifying the process, the latest letter compounded the confusion, as the income criterion was further raised. As per the new norms, all those who don’t pay income tax could remain in the BPL list. This means the families who have annual income of less than Rs 1.60 lakh could be categorised as the BPL.

Pointing out inherent flaws in the procedure, a Principal Secretary of the state government wondered as to why the Chief Secretary and Food and Civil Supplies Secretary BK Tripathi were taking so much interest in it, even though the exercise is supposed to be the prerogative of the Rural Development Department.

Mahato, on his part, assured that the survey would now be done in an appropriate manner as he, in the capacity of the Rural Development Minister, has stepped in to resolve the issue.

Talking to the iGovernment after the meeting, Sudesh Mahato said that the government might seek the centre’s help in finalising the criteria for BPL classification very soon.

“A high-level delegation from Jharkhand would go to the Prime Minister as well to seek his help for the purpose, so that the state could get appropriate share from the centre for the BPL families.