India Has BPL. But What About the Crores Stuck Just Above It? We Need a New Line.

My father earned ₹6,000 a month in 2005. We were not BPL. We did not qualify for subsidised ration, free healthcare, or government housing. But we were also not comfortable. We were the family that skipped the AC bus and took the crowded one. The family that studied under a single tubelight because the electricity bill had to be managed. The family that was technically "above poverty" but felt the weight of every rupee. Crores of Indian families know exactly what I am talking about. India has built one of the most elaborate welfare systems in the world around a single line — the BPL, the Below Poverty Line. Everything flows from it. Free ration under PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana. Subsidised housing under PMAY. Ayushman Bharat health cover. MGNREGA employment guarantee. If you are below the line, the system sees you. If you are above it — even marginally — the system largely forgets you exist. This is not a complaint about the poor getting help. They should. That is not the point. The point is that India's entire policy architecture is built on a binary — poor or not poor. And that binary is increasingly failing the largest, most economically important, most politically invisible group in the country. --- THE LINE THAT DECIDES EVERYTHING The BPL threshold, as last defined by the Union Cabinet methodology, was ₹27,000 per year for a household — roughly ₹2,250 a month. Some states have revised this upward. Himachal Pradesh recently raised it to ₹50,000 annually. But these numbers, by any honest standard, are desperately low. A family earning ₹3,000 a month falls outside BPL in most states. They receive no subsidised ration, no free hospitalisation, no housing scheme priority. Yet ₹3,000 a month in 2025 — in any city, in almost any town — cannot cover rent, school fees, medicine, and food together. These families are not poor enough for the government to help them. They are not rich enough to help themselves. This is the gap. And it is enormous. --- WHO LIVES IN THE GAP According to income research, India broadly has: Households earning under ₹1.25 lakh annually — generally classified as poor or aspirational poor, many BPL-eligible. Households earning ₹1.25 lakh to ₹5 lakh annually — lower middle class, sometimes called "aspiring India", largely uncovered by welfare schemes. Households earning ₹5 lakh to ₹30 lakh annually — the broader middle class, fully tax-paying, no subsidy access, increasingly squeezed. Households earning above ₹30 lakh — upper class, capable of private alternatives for everything. The second and third groups — let's call them roughly ₹1.25 lakh to ₹15 lakh annually — represent hundreds of millions of Indians. They pay income tax. They pay GST on everything they buy. They pay full price for private schools because government schools often fail them. They pay full price for private hospitals because government hospitals are overcrowded. They get no food subsidy. No housing priority. No employment guarantee. They are, by every measure, the financial backbone of this country. And they are largely on their own. --- THE PROPOSAL: THREE LINES, NOT ONE India needs to stop thinking in binary — BPL versus everyone else — and start thinking in three defined economic layers. Call the first what it already is: Below Poverty Line (BPL). Households that cannot meet basic caloric, shelter, and health needs without government support. This classification should remain and be strengthened. Call the second something new. I would suggest MPL — Middle Progress Line. Households earning between ₹1.25 lakh and ₹12 lakh annually, adjusted for city size and inflation. These are families that are functional but fragile. One medical emergency, one job loss, one bad crop season away from slipping into poverty. They need a different set of tools — not food subsidy, but subsidised skilling, subsidised education loans, affordable healthcare that is not charity but a right. Call the third what it is: Above Progress Line (APL), the upper and wealthy class. These households have the resources to access private alternatives and should not be the primary target of welfare spending. Three layers. Three distinct policy approaches. Not a charity model for all three — a dignity model. --- WHAT POLICIES WOULD LOOK DIFFERENT If India formally recognised the MPL — the middle progress layer — here is what would change. Healthcare: Ayushman Bharat currently covers BPL families for hospitalisation up to ₹5 lakh. An MPL extension could offer partial coverage at co-pay — say, the government covers 50%, the family pays 50%. This is not charity. It is insurance that the middle class currently buys privately at full cost if they can afford it, and skips if they cannot. Education: Government college seats and scholarships are primarily reserved for SC, ST, OBC, and BPL families. Merit seats are competed for by upper class families with coaching, tutors, and resources. An MPL scholarship — income-tested, not caste-tested — would give the struggling middle child a real shot without gaming the reservation system. Housing: PMAY urban currently prioritises EWS (Economically Weaker Section) and LIG (Low Income Group) beneficiaries. An MPL tier for families earning ₹5–10 lakh annually could offer subsidised interest rates on home loans — not free homes, but affordable ones. The difference between 8.5% and 5% interest on a ₹30 lakh loan over 20 years is ₹12–15 lakh in real money. That is transformative for a middle-class family. Skilling and Employment: Most government skilling schemes target rural populations and BPL households. The urban middle-class young person switching careers, the small-town graduate trying to enter the IT sector, the woman returning to work after childrearing — these are MPL citizens who need structured, subsidised upskilling that currently does not exist at scale. Tax Policy: A family earning ₹10 lakh in Mumbai pays full 30% tax bracket rates on income above ₹15 lakh, spends 40–50% of take-home on rent, sends children to private school because the nearest government school does not meet expectations, and has no government healthcare fallback. This family is not rich. Recognising this formally through MPL-linked tax reliefs — deductions for private school fees, health insurance premiums, and skill certifications — would acknowledge reality rather than deny it. --- THE POLITICAL REASON THIS HASN'T HAPPENED The middle class does not organise. It does not agitate. It does not burn buses or block highways. It files its taxes quietly, grumbles on Twitter, and votes — often without any politician having made a concrete promise specifically to it. Welfare schemes generate votes because they are visible, direct, and immediate. A ration card, a gas cylinder, a house — these are tangible and photographable. A subsidised home loan interest rate or a co-pay healthcare scheme is abstract and cannot be inaugurated with a ribbon cutting ceremony. This is the structural reason middle-class policy gets lip service and not legislation. The political incentive is simply not strong enough yet. But this is changing. India's middle class is projected to grow from 31% of the population in 2021 to 60% by 2047, according to PRICE research. A party that builds a serious, credible policy platform for the MPL — the middle progress layer — before 2029 will have found a constituency that no one else is talking to directly. That is not just good economics. It is smart politics. --- WHAT I AM NOT SAYING I am not saying the poor should receive less. Poverty alleviation is a moral imperative and an economic necessity. A country where the bottom cannot eat is a country that cannot grow. I am not saying the middle class should receive the same type of support as the poor. The instruments are different. Food subsidy makes no sense for a family earning ₹8 lakh. But co-pay healthcare, education access, and affordable housing absolutely do. I am saying that India's policy vocabulary is stuck in 1991. The country has changed. The economy has changed. Four hundred million people now live in a space that the government has no name for, no framework for, and no systematic policy for. Give them a name. Give that name a framework. And build policy around it. --- The BPL was a necessary invention for a poor country trying to survive. The MPL — the Middle Progress Line — is a necessary invention for an aspiring country trying to grow. India cannot become a developed nation by 2047 if the engine of that growth — the middle class — is running on fumes, paying full price for everything, and receiving nothing back. We owe them more than that. We owe them a line. Share this if you think India's middle class deserves its own policy identity, not just budget speeches.