For a man to whom the term CM signifies the common man will not be satisfied until the fruits of the state’s development reach the most ordinary and those who have been hitherto deprived. There are different groups of such people and each group requires a special way to be dealt with. Going to the root of the problems they face, his empathetic heart came out with steps like issue of roaming ration cards, roaming school cards, insurance cover for 3 lac handicapped, insurance cover for 12.5 million school children, special housing colony for the snake charmers, betterment of the kite preparing community and several other awe-inspiring ideas.

The fact that Gujarat ranks first in the country in the implementation of the 20 point programme for poverty abolition for the last four years in a row, speaks a lot beyond ranks and numbers. As per the estimate of the Planning Commission of India, Gujarat will remain at the top in achieving the targets of poverty abolition. In fact, the government has already provided Housing to 46,263 below poverty line families at the cost of Rs. 13672.94 lacs.

In the BPL (below poverty line) survey 2002–07, conducted to identify beneficiaries for rural development programmes, three new socio-economic parameters were included in the survey, viz. households headed by widows, female dependent families and handicapped members. This door-to-door survey covered 68.65 lac rural households of which 15.93% were identified as extremely poor and 84.07% as poor.

This new BPL list has now been placed online and the selection of beneficiaries is based on this list. This list will be revised every year and online query of data has been made accessible to all.