Special Reports

New BPL Figure: Econometrics or Politics?

Ajit Kumar
Jun 2012
The new poverty estimates by the Planning Commission in March 2012 add to the uproar triggered by the it's own affidavit in the Supreme Court in October 2011 in which the BPL cap was pegged at an expenditure of Rs. 32 and Rs. 26 by an inidual in the urban and rural areas respectively at the going rate of inflation in 2010-11.
 
The Planning Commission, on March 19, 2012, released the latest poverty estimates for the country showing a decline in the incidence of poverty by 7.3 per cent from 2004-05 to 2009-10 and affirmed that anyone with a daily consumption expenditure of Rs. 28.35 and Rs. 22.42 in urban and rural areas respectively is above the poverty line. Rural poverty has declined by eight percentage points, from 41.8 per cent to 33.8 per cent, and urban poverty by 4.8 per cent, from 25.7 per cent to 20.9 per cent. In India, anyone earning Rs. 672.8 monthly that is earning Rs. 22.42 per day in the rural area and Rs. 859.6 monthly or Rs. 28.35 per day in the urban area is above the poverty line. The total number of people below the poverty line (BPL) in the country is 35.46 crore as against 40.72 crore in 2004-05. In rural areas, the number has come down from 32.58 crore five years ago to 27.82 crore and the urban BPL number stands at 7.64 crore as against 8.14 crore five years ago. On the basis of social groupings the estimates declared that in the rural areas, Scheduled Tribes (47.4 per cent) suffer the highest level of poverty, followed by Scheduled Castes (42.3 per cent), Other Backward Castes (31.9 per cent) as against. 33.8 per cent for all classes

Poor children in India
 
The opposition benches in parliament viewed that the government was making a 'dishonest' attempt to conceal reality through "fraudulent" estimates. These fraudulent poverty measures may be used to deny poor people of their right to BPL cards or be used as a benchmark for allocating funds to the states or for welfare programmes. The exercise was a neo-liberal fiscal strategy to squeeze public expenditure and contain budget deficit.
 
The Left Parties said that the Commission had reduced the daily per-capita calorie requirement for an average Indian from 2,400 calories in rural areas and 2,100 calories in urban areas to 1,770 calories. Pointing out that this level was lower than the minimum (2,700 calories) set by the 15th International Labour Conference in 1957, the Food and Agriculture Organisation had recommended 1,770 calories as only the amount of energy required for light or sedentary activity. Hence it was not the calorie requirement of the poor in India who were primarily engaged in heavy manual work.
 
The Planning Commission refuting the allegations said that there is no reason to fear that the Tendulkar committee poverty result in exclusion of families otherwise deserving special assistance. The commission clarified that the government programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Right to Education Act and Food Security Act (FSA) had been delinked from the poverty line estimated on the basis of the Tendulkar methodology which was only being used to understand the impact of government programmes over a period of time.
 
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