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17 March 2006 - The poverty line. You've heard that phrase so often. So many below it, so many have moved above it; 36 per cent below it once, 26 per cent now. The numbers fly about, the debates rage on. Yet what is the line? What does it mean to say someone is below the poverty line?

Let's start with what the line is. This page gives us the definition according to the Government's Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation: "The official estimates of the poverty line are based on a norm of 2400 calories per capita per day for rural areas and 2100 per capita per day for urban areas." This goes back to the 1970s; at that time, we decided to measure poverty levels by considering a minimum nutritional level. More accurately, the measure was the amount of money required to buy food equivalent to this nutritional level. If you earned more than this amount, you were above the poverty line. More: Indiatogether