Congress in damage-control mode on poverty statistics

SMITA GUPTA                                                                              NEW DELHI, July 26, 2013

A mockery of life and death struggles, says CPI(M); govt. defines poverty as per its whims and fancies, says BJP

The Planning Commission’s controversial poverty figures — with BPL pegged at Rs. 33.30 and Rs. 27.20 in urban and rural India respectively — will have “no impact on the government welfare schemes” said the Congress, as this definition will not be used to identify beneficiaries.

“The Planning Commission’s poverty figures,” Congress communication chief Ajay Maken told The Hindu , “will have no impact on the 150-odd schemes, as we have de-linked them from this definition of BPL. At the moment, only one scheme remains — the old age pension — and the government is in the process of de-linking that as well.”

Why so much fanfare?

So, why were the figures released with so much fanfare on Tuesday? “It’s just an academic exercise,” Mr. Maken said, “to understand the impact of the policies and programmes on poverty – it has nothing to do with identifying beneficiaries. You can see we have already said that the food security law will cover 67 per cent of the population.”

Planning Minister Rajeev Shukla too tried to do some damage control, saying the latest estimates were just a preliminary assessment by an expert group, and that regardless of the BJP’s criticism, the population of poor people in the country had dwindled faster during the UPA regime than it had in the BJP-led NDA’s six years regime.

Loose remarks

But the damage has been done, and it has been compounded by party MP Rasheed Masood and spokesperson Raj Babbar speaking glibly of being able to buy meals ranging from Rs. 5 (in Delhi) to Rs. 12 (in Mumbai) — remarks that have been greeted with hoots of derision not just by the twitterati but by all Opposition parties.

A senior Congress functionary told The Hindu of his discomfiture with his colleagues’ comments, saying that the party would have preferred it if they had remained silent on the issue.

Meanwhile, for the second day running, the Opposition parties had a field day questioning the credibility of the Planning Commission’s figures – that those living below the poverty line had shrunk to 21.9 per cent in 2011-2012 from 37.2 per cent in 2004-2005.

BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi took the lead, charging the government with mocking the plight of the poor and misleading them in a bid to cover fewer people under the Food Security Act.

“It [the estimates] proves that the government defines poverty as per its whims and fancies. It increases the number of the poor or decreases it as and when it wants,” he said.

The CPI(M) said the estimates made “a mockery of life and death struggles” of the people, amid the continuous rise in prices and “massive” slashing of subsidies for the poor. The UPA government is carrying out an “exercise of deceit” before the elections to show that the poor had benefited during its tenure, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said.

“The manner in which this has been done only reconfirms an age-old English adage — there are lies, damned lies and statistics,” he added.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/congress-in-damagecontrol-mode-on-poverty-statistics/article4954538.ece

Beyond the debate, govt. accepts 65% Indians are poor

RUKMINI S                                                                                   NEW DELHI, July 24, 2013

M.K. VENU

Notional poverty line will stand at a per capita expenditure of around Rs. 50 per day in rural areas and Rs. 62 in urban areas

While the Opposition pillories the Planning Commission for using a formal definition of poverty that ensures the percentage of people below the poverty line is lower than what it ought to be, the government has begun moving to a broader and more realistic de facto definition that will include roughly 65 per cent of the population. This notional poverty line will stand at a per capita expenditure of around Rs. 50 per day in rural areas and Rs 62 in urban areas.

As first reported by The Hindu, the Planning Commission has revised the official poverty headcount ratio down from 37 per cent of the total population in 2004-5 to 22 per cent of the population in 2011-12.

These poverty rates come from applying the Suresh Tendulkar committee’s methodology for estimating poverty to draw a poverty line, and using the National Sample Survey Organisation’s consumption expenditure data for 2011-12 to see what proportion of the population falls below these lines.

While Planning Commission-derived poverty lines and estimates have been all-important in the past because they are used to draw up BPL lists and allot entitlements, their inappropriateness today is demonstrated by the fact that the government itself is now moving away from using these numbers altogether. Following the Union Cabinet’s clearing of the National Food Security Ordinance, the Planning Commission has estimated that subsidised foodgrain entitlements will cover 67 per cent of the population. Simultaneously, economists advising the Ministry of Rural Development have told The Hindu that the exclusion criteria to be derived from the ongoing Socio-Economic and Caste Census are likely to leave out the top 35 per cent of the population while the bottom 65 per cent will be considered BPL.

“This is a step away from the narrow definition of poverty we have been using, where the line is really what I call a ‘kutta-billi’ line; only cats and dogs can survive on it,” said N.C. Saxena, member of the National Advisory Council, who headed a Planning Commission panel on poverty that recommended automatic inclusion and exclusion criteria. Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said last year that the government was moving towards universalising its social protection schemes, and the Public Distribution System and pensions remained the only schemes that still relied on BPL criteria, Mr. Saxena added. A World Bank study of India’s social protection schemes had shown that universal schemes were far better at actually reaching the poor than those targeted at the poor.

By covering 67 per cent of the population, the government is in effect drawing the poverty line 85 per cent higher than what it is currently drawn at, Planning Commission member Saumitra Chaudhuri told The Hindu. By 2011-12 consumption expenditures, this works out to roughly Rs.1,506 monthly per capita expenditure — or Rs. 50 per day — for rural areas, and Rs. 1,850 per month — or Rs. 62 per day — for urban areas. While India’s poverty line has usually corresponded with the World Bank’s definition of extreme poverty, which is $1.25 (in Purchasing Power Parity terms) per person per day, the new notional poverty line would correspond more closely with the Bank’s definition of moderate poverty. The $2 line corresponded with Rs. 45 per day in rural India and Rs. 57 per day in urban India in 2011-12, Bank representatives said on Wednesday.

“It’s important to remember that those who aren’t poor in our country can still be very disadvantaged,” Mr. Saxena said. The Hindu’s analysis of the new NSSO consumption expenditure data shows that 90 per cent of rural Indians spend less than Rs. 70 per day, while 90 per cent of urban Indians spend less than Rs. 154 per day.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/planning-commissions-figures-on-poverty-slammed/article4948698.ece?mstac=0

Poverty levels down by 15% in eight years

GIRIJA SHIVAKUMAR           NEWS » NATIONAL         July 16, 2013

Latest NSSO data show a decline from 37% to 22% for all of India, poor states record steepest decrease

Poverty levels across India decreased by 15 percentage points — approximately 2 percentage year over year — between 2004-05 and 2011-12, as per the latest National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) figures accessed exclusively byThe Hindu. Many economists and government officials say the significant reductions in poverty levels can be correlated to high economic growth rates.

Between 2005 and 2010, the country’s GDP grew at an average of 8.5 per cent and the poverty rate (the proportion of the population below the poverty line) registered an average annual decline of 1.48 per cent. The percentage of the country’s population living below the poverty line declined from 37 per cent in 2004-05 to 22 per cent in 2011-12, according to NSSO data. The 11th Plan (2007-08 to 2011-12) had targeted reducing poverty by two percentage points by 2009-10, compared to 2004-05. Rural poverty has declined faster than urban poverty during this period.

Encouraging as those gains are, the country still counts nearly 26.89 crore poor among its citizens. According to the data, the total number of people below the poverty line in the country is 26.89 crore as against 40.73 crore in 2004-05. In rural areas, the number has reduced from 32.58 crore to 21.72 crore.

The data also indicate that the steepest decline in poverty was in India’s poorer states. “While there has been a national reduction of poverty by two percentage points by 2009-10, compared to 2004-05, different states have performed differently. Bihar, Orissa, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh have witnessed a sharp decline. Bihar shows the biggest decline,” Saumitra Chaudhuri, member Planning Commission told The Hindu.

Bihar has experienced a substantive decline with the percentage of the population living below poverty line (BPL) coming down from 55 per cent in 2004-05 to some 35 per cent in 2011-12. The figures for Gujarat were 31 per cent in 2004-05 and 16 per cent in 2011-12. In Rajasthan, 0.6 crore were lifted out of poverty in the same period. Andhra Pradesh reveals a noteworthy decline in urban poverty from 23 per cent in 2004-05 to 6 per cent in 2011-12.

“Wherever you draw the poverty line or set the poverty level it does not matter as there will still be a decline,” says Mr. Chaudhuri.

Previously, poverty was shown to be declining by 1.5 percentage points between 2004-05 and 2009-10, the Planning Commission had received criticism for pegging the poverty line cut-off at Rs 28.65 per capita daily consumption in cities and Rs 22.42 in rural areas.

The Planning Commission has been estimating the number of people below the poverty line at both the state and national level based on consumer expenditure information collected as part of NSSO surveys since the Sixth Five Year Plan.