NEW CRITERIA FOR URBAN POOR IDENTIFICATION

• The urban poor will now be identified on the basis of social, economic and occupational vulnerabilities as the housing and poverty alleviation ministry has decided to junk the Planning Commission's income benchmark. 

 OLD CRITERIA:

• Families earning below Rs 4,824 a month are put in the bracket of urban poor.

 PROBLEM:

• Income certificates are forged or are being procured after bribing officials.
• Difficult to identify beneficiaries in metropolises and other cities, where few families earn below the BPL cutoff while many of them live in vulnerable conditions

 NEW MECHANISM:

• Urban poor will be defined according to people's vulnerabilities.
• The identification of urban poor will be based on the recommendations of the Hashim committee.
• Under the mechanism, families will be divided into two groups -- those automatically included the other automatically excluded -- in the poverty bracket. 
• Those automatically included in the poverty bracket will be the homeless and jobless. Those included will be graded by the ministry on the basis of economic, social, occupational and housing vulnerabilities. Based on data from the caste census, families will be graded and assigned points according to their needs. 
• Automatically excluded will be families with a pakka house, motor vehicle or electronic appliances such as air-conditioner or refrigerator.