BAJURA: Statistics of poverty prepared by the Bajura District Development Committee have left out actual poor people living under poverty.

It has been found that the list of poor households excludes actual poor families. On contrary, it includes well-to-do families, representatives of local bodies in the district have complained.

The poor families' data includes well-to-do people — permanent teachers and civil servants. Executive of Triveni Municipality Khagendra Saud pointed out the data collectors' weakness in leaving out the poor people.

Furthermore, the index of poor people lists Khambir Budha accountant and local resident of SwamiKartik Rural Municipality-4, who is also Chief Account Officer at the District Health Office. More to it, the rural municipality's senior auxiliary health worker and coordinator Bhakta Bahadur Kaila has also been included in list.

Arjun Nepali and  Arjun Nath are the first two residents of the Swamikartik Rural Municipality ward no. 4 to secure permanent government jobs, while others Lokraj Mahatara, Joban Bahadur Shahi and Lokaj Mahatara are also the civil servants. All five of them have also been included in the list of poor people.

The responsibility of identifying poor people was accorded to social mobilisers associated with Local Governance and Community Development Program (LGCDP) under District Development Committee.

Obviously, the shortcomings in the information shows that the data collectors have not reached all the settlements since many others are missing from the index.

Ministry of Cooperative and Poverty Alleviation (MoCPA) had carried out collection of information for distributing ID cards to people identified as ‘poor’ in rural districts. The identification of poor people was collected in 25 districts from mid-April 2012 to 2013.

NGO Federation of Nepal, Bajura district chapter chair Kashi BK claimed that the statistics prepared by the district.

Meanwhile, Director at the Secretariat of Household identification and ID card management and Distribution Coordination Board, Ramhari Gaire said that the poor households were identified using 18 indexes. He said the shortcomings in the statistics would be corrected.