Every third Indian under poverty line, says report
A new report prepared under the supervision of Suresh Tendulkar reveals that 37.2% of the Indian population is living below the poverty line. Using cost-of-living index for measuring poverty, it finds that the number of urban poor has decreased overtime, while in rural areas it has gone up.
One in three Indians lives below the poverty line according to the Tendulkar Committee report which used a measurement of goods and services, rather than calorie intake, to calculate poverty.
- The new poverty line is different for different states/ Photo credit: BBC
A new method to draw the ‘poverty line’ has resulted in an increase in the number of people living below the poverty line in India, from 27.5% of the population to 37.2%, that is, an increase of 10% for 2004-05.
A committee headed by economist Suresh Tendulkar has drawn up a new formula for assessing poverty, which it has submitted to the Planning Commission.
The Dandekar-Rath poverty line formula that has been used since 1971 measures only the calorie content of an Indian’s diet. If it is lower than 2,250 calories per person per day, the person is declared to be under the poverty line. This norm was not revised in 35 years.
The Tendulkar Committee replaces the calorie measurement by a cost-of-living index, that is, how much money a person spends. It looks at a basket of household goods and services such as health and education.
The new poverty line is different for different states and also different for rural and urban areas within a state.
The all-India average rural poverty line is set at a monthly expenditure of Rs 446.68 a month; the national urban poverty line at Rs 578.8 a month. Goa’s rural poverty line is the highest, pegged at Rs 608.76 a month; Delhi’s is Rs 541.39 and Chhattisgarh’s Rs 398.92 per month.
Among the states, Orissa and Bihar are the worst while Nagaland, Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir have the least number of poor. Andhra Pradesh has seen a tripling of rural poor, from 64.7 lakh (Planning Commission, 2007) to 187.07 lakh.
In Uttar Pradesh, the number of rural poor has increased by 131 lakh, to 604.74 lakh. In Maharashtra, the number has increased by 106 lakh, in Bihar by 109 lakh, and in Rajasthan by 80 lakh.
The number of people categorised as urban poor has, however, dropped slightly under the new formula, from 807.96 lakh, according to the Planning Commission’s 2007 panel report, to 807.58 lakh.
The BPL figures are important because many of the government’s social welfare and poverty alleviation programmes are based on it; their success or otherwise can be gauged depending on the numbers.
The measurement of BPL has long been a contentious issue. Union Planning Commission member Abhjit Sen recently reasoned that if one factored in a calorie intake of 2,400 for rural areas and 2,100 for urban areas, then 80% of rural India and 64% of urban India would be below the poverty line.
A rural development ministry panel headed by N.C. Saxena said that 50% of Indians were below the poverty line if one considered the criterion of calorie intake. The World Bank estimates that 41.6% of Indians live on less than USD 1.25 a day, the international poverty line.
