Ziraat Times News Desk
Srinagar, July 8: The Jammu & Kashmir Government is set to undertake its first-ever household-level enumeration to identify multidimensionally poor families, with the aim of creating a scientifically validated digital database to improve the targeting of welfare schemes and ensure benefits reach the most deprived households.
The proposed initiative was reviewed on Tuesday by Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo during a meeting of the Planning, Development & Monitoring Department (PD&MD), attended by senior administrative officials, including the Additional Chief Secretary, Finance; Commissioners Secretaries of Planning, Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs, and Social Welfare; Secretary, Rural Development Department; heads of departments; and Deputy Commissioners through video conferencing.
Describing the exercise as a significant step towards inclusive and evidence-based governance, Dulloo said the household enumeration would identify families experiencing multiple deprivations across key sectors and help government departments deliver welfare benefits with greater precision.
He said the initiative would establish a technology-enabled institutional framework for identifying pockets of deprivation across Jammu & Kashmir, improve convergence among government departments and ensure that deserving families are not left out of welfare programmes.
The Chief Secretary directed Deputy Commissioners to assess human resource requirements in coordination with the Planning Department and asked the department to design capacity-building programmes for enumerators. He said the exercise should commence after completion of the two phases of the national Census operations, including coverage of pastoral communities.
Commissioner Secretary, Planning, Development & Monitoring Department, R. Alice Vaz presented the proposal, explaining that it is based on the National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) framework developed by NITI Aayog in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), while adapting it for household-level identification within Jammu & Kashmir.
Unlike national sample surveys that provide broad poverty estimates, the proposed exercise seeks to identify individual households experiencing deprivation, enabling direct and targeted government intervention, she said.
In its initial phase, the enumeration will cover approximately 2.19 lakh Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) beneficiary households across all 20 districts of Jammu & Kashmir.
The survey will assess households across three dimensions—health, education and standard of living—using 12 indicators, including nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, maternal health, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, household assets and financial inclusion.
A digital application will automatically generate a weighted deprivation score for each household, with those crossing the prescribed threshold being identified as multidimensionally poor.
The proposal also envisages two digital survey schedules. The first will collect information required to calculate the multidimensional poverty score, while the second—applicable only to households identified as poor—will gather information on the reasons for deprivation, gaps in access to government schemes, awareness levels and barriers preventing eligible families from availing benefits.
Officials said the resulting database would serve as a decision-support system for the government by facilitating convergence of welfare schemes related to health, education, housing, drinking water, sanitation, clean energy, financial inclusion, livelihoods and social protection.
The database is also expected to support evidence-based district planning, improve utilisation of public resources and strengthen monitoring of Sustainable Development Goals across Jammu & Kashmir.
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