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The Great Poverty Debate
Mansukh Kaur
 At
a time when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh incessantly talks of
inclusive growth, a concept that the Sikh community can only welcome
because it is in perfect congruence with the high ideals of a quom
that prays every day for Sarbat Da Bhala, it is very important that
we have a re-look at how the poor are defined in India.
Indian poverty
data is collected in the form of population earning less than a
miserable sum required for subsistence level survival. This is
called Below Poverty Line (BPL) population.
New Delhi is
keen to ensure food security for the poorer sections of the society,
but the below-poverty-line debate continues unabated with consensus
on the issue among the policy planners remaining elusive. Now,
adding a new dimension to the issue, Planning Commission member
Abhjit Sen has argued that evaluation of poverty should be done on
the basis of income rather than calorie intake.
Sen reasoned
that if one factored in calorie intake of 2,400 for rural areas and
2,100 for urban areas, then 64 per cent of urban
India
and 80 per cent of rural India would be below the poverty line. A
rural development ministry panel had said that 50 per cent of
Indians are below the poverty line considering the criterion of
calorie intake and suggested that they be covered under BPL schemes.
As per the plan
panel's estimation in 2004-05,
India
has 30 crore people living below the poverty line. But according to
the rural development ministry's 2002 poverty census,
India
had over 40 crore poor people. Again the World Bank on basis of 1.25
dollars per day believes that India has 45 crore poor people. So
clearly there is no consensus on the quantum of populace living
below the poverty line.
The commission
member pointed out that the rural development ministry committee's
recommendation this year on he estimation of BPL families was not
binding on the government, as it was not a term of reference for the
committee. "The committee was asked to define the criteria for
identifying families below the poverty line," he said. The
government had entrusted the job of estimation of poverty to a
committee headed by S D Tendulkar, chairman of the Prime Minister's
Economic Advisory Council. It is yet to submit its report.
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How many poor in India? There are many answers. New Delhi’s
Planning Commission India has 30 crore people living below the
poverty line. But its Rural Development ministry says the figure
is over 40 crore. Again the World Bank on basis of 1.25 dollars
per day believes India has 45 crore poor people. Now, Abhijit
Sen, a top Planning Commission member and respected economist
says if one factored in calorie intake of 2,400 for rural areas
and 2,100 for urban areas, then 64 per cent of urban India and
80 per cent of rural India would be below the poverty line. |
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With the
committee igniting a debate on
India's
poverty figures, Sen said a mix of food and monthly expenditure
based criteria would be a good idea for poverty estimation. But
even as we wait for the Tendulkar committee, it is important to look
closer home and see how is the poverty data panned out in
Punjab.
For Punjab, the
BPL stands at Rs 356 a month for rural areas and Rs 539 a month for
urban areas. That meant anyone earning Rs 12 a day or more will not
be considered as being below the poverty line in Punjab’s villages.
Even with such
shameless data, Punjab has a fig leaf of a figure to defend itself
as the proportion of such population in Punjab was 8.4 per cent
this year, better than the Indian national figure of 27.5 per cent.
But the real story lies in the break up of this data. While the
figures for Punjab for BPL population stand at 8.4 per cent, in
Muktsar district, 28.3 per cent of the rural population lives below
the poverty line while 22.8 per cent are condemned to survive on
less than Rs 18 a day.
That shows the
situation as worse as in the rest of
India
since the national figures for BPL families are 28.3 per cent for
rural areas and 27.5 per cent urban townships and cities.
Senior economist
Sucha Singh Gill has underlined how the BPL figures in rural areas
for Moga (25.2 per cent), Faridkot (23.9 per cent), Bathinda (23.1
per cent), Ferozepore (17.5 per cent) and Mansa (16.6 per cent)
prove that the politicians have found it more convenient to
perpetuate poverty rather than ameliorate it.
Moving away from
the areas represented by the Badals, Bhattal, Harcharan Brar, Partap
Singh Kairon, the northern district of Gurdaspur has 2.3 per cent
rural population below poverty line and all districts of Doaba
region like Jalandhar (0.9 per cent), Nawanshahr (1.2 per cent),
Hoshiarpur (1.7 per cent) and Kapurthala (4.2 per cent) show a very
low incidence of rural poverty.
The NSSO data
also shows that the districts which display the highest level of
rural poverty in the state have the highest proportion of population
dependent on agriculture.
15
July 2009
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