A government body has identified over 300,000 households in 25 districts as poor and sent its findings to the Cabinet for endorsement.

It will start distributing poor identity cards to the households after the Cabinet approval. 

The Poor Household Support Coordination Board Secretariat on June 4 approved the final list of 391,831 households deemed as poor from 25 districts. 

The Secretariat had conducted a survey in Bhojpur, Khotang, Siraha, Sindhuli, Ramechhap, Rautahat, Gorkha, Tanahun, Baglung, Kapilvastu, Arghakhanchi, Pyuthan, Rolpa, Rukum, Bardiya, Jajarkot, Dolpa, Jumla, Kalikot, Mugu, Humla, Bajura, Bajhang, Achham and Kailali in the first phase.

“We have used 18 indicators including ownership of the house, its structure, types 

of cooking fuel, water and sanitation facilities, household size and ethnicity to calculate poverty level,” said Ram Hari Gaihre, spokesperson for the Secretariat. 

Gaihre said they had surveyed a total of 1,240,350 households and the preliminary list of 356,418 poor households was published from District Development Committees and Village Development Committees to address any grievances or objections. 

Following the complaints and additional revisions, the board revised the number of poor households to 391,831. 

Among the poor households, the board has classified 188,235 households as “extreme poor”; 119,748 as “mid-poor” and 83,848 households as “general poor”.

Breaking down the data for the surveyed district, 44,629 households were identified as poor followed by Siraha where the number of poor households stood at 40,032.

The survey had employed Proxy Mean Test (PMT). 

The PMT, according to the World Bank, is a concept where “information on household or individual characteristics correlated with welfare levels is used in a formal algorithm to proxy household income, welfare or need”.

The government had formed the Secretariat in August 2012 to identify the poor households and distribute identification cards.

Based on the identification, the poor households can avail themselves of social security programmes including educational scholarship, health insurance and skill trainings towards food security and self-employment. 

By numbers

Extreme poor 188,235 

Mid-poor 119,748 

General poor 83,848 

Total 391,831