MPSC Rajyaseva 2014 CSAT — Question 78

The Government prepared a list of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families. Such BPL families are provided 35 kg. of food grains per month at a subsidized rate of Rs. 2 per kg. A collector of a district realized that around 20% families in his district which are genuinely poor as per Government norms were left out of BPL list whereas a large number of families in the existing BPL list not truly BPL are taking disadvantage. The request by the Collector to the State Government to allow him to include genuine BPL families in the list is turned down, however, the Government has directed to delete the names of the families taking undue benefit from the list. Under above circumstances, which of the following recourse would you have adopted had you been in the Collector's seat ?

Option 1 carries out the government's order to remove bogus families and, within proper channels, asks to replace them with the same number of genuine families, so it costs nothing extra and helps the poor; full marks. Leaking to the media (1) undermines discipline, cutting everyone's entitlement on his own (0.5) exceeds his authority, and simply telling the poor his hands are tied (0) helps no one.