2.75 crore out of 3.5 crore people listed below poverty line in Telangana

Hyderabad: Out of the 3.5 crore people in the state, 2.75 crore are below the poverty line according to statistics available with the civil supplies department.

The government spends Rs 6,380 crore a year to supply these families rice at Rs 1 a kg, purchasing it at Rs 29 in the open. Of this, the Centre’s subsidy is Rs 3,715 crore and the state pays Rs 2,655 crore.

Civil supplies minister Etala Rajendar told the Assembly on Monday that these figures showed that the BPL statistics were wrong and proved that there was largescale diversion of subsidised rice to the open market.

To rectify this, he said, the government was conducting inspections of BPL families to weed out bogus beneficiaries.