Five poorest families in every village may soon get extra government attention

NEW DELHI: Identifying five most deprived families in every village and providing them assistance through direct intervention is expected to be one of the recommendations of Niti Aayog's panel set up to suggest ways to eliminate poverty in the country.

The beneficiaries would be identified by the panchayats and would be provided direct central assistance through various government schemes. More such families could be included in future as part of anti-poverty schemes, said an official.

Among other measures, the Aayog wants to incentivize panchayats and municipalities for success of anti-poverty programmes.

The panel, which is likely to finalize its report by June, feels a mechanism of cash transfers and addressing the problem of leaks through the Aadhaar platform could be adopted for anti-poverty schemes.

The task force, headed by Niti Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya and including Bibek Debroy and the government's chief statistician TCA Anant, wants the government to address leaks and inefficiency in welfare schemes by encouraging Aadhaar-based services, noting that around 80% of the population was already covered under Aadhaar.

A senior official said the concept of JAM trinity ( Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile) could play a vital role in widening the reach of the government to vulnerable sections of the society.

As far as national urban livelihood mission and housing for all by 2022 schemes of the government are concerned, the task force was worried about using socio-economic caste census 2011 as there will be significant gap between the survey year and the actual identification of poor for delivery of services.

"The objective should be to attain the six goals highlighted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi by 2022, which includes housing for all, which would have at least one earning member and which would be connected to at least one major road," said a senior official.