New Delhi, March 27 -- No doubt, Congress President Rahul Gandhi has captured the country's attention with his party's promise of a monthly Rs.6,000 handout to 50 million families at the bottom 20% of India's income pyramid. As election gambits go, it's a big one. Called NYAY, short for Nyuntam Aay Yojana, it aims to reinforce what the party claims as its final assault on poverty.This is a noble effort, but how it will pan out remains unclear in the dense fog of electoral war. For one, it isn't clear if all beneficiaries would get this money, or if they will get the top-up amount that takes their earnings to Rs.12,000 per month, the scheme's threshold. Gandhi's statement was unclear and conflicting comments by party functionaries have only added to the confusion. Both approaches suffer from flaws that would make the scheme tough to implement. To begin with, the top challenge would be how to identify India's poorest one-fifth households. The country lacks reliable income data on its citizens, and this problem is especially acute lower down the scale. Even the Socio Economic and Caste Census uses proxies to assess people's quality of life; and since the last survey was done back in 2011, its data is outdated. Like wealth, income is a dynamic measure, and large numbers of self-employed earners make it all the more difficult to get precise information. Maybe an opt-in scheme could ask for applicants to get their earnings certified, but such an eligibility exercise might be easy to game. Worse, those who just about miss the cut would be left chafing, resentful that people who earn a few hundred rupees less get several thousand more. A cut-off criterion that is so arbitrary cannot be equally just to everyone....