India backs away from new definition of ‘poor’

Agencies/New Delhi

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh (left) looks on as Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia addresses a press conference in New Delhi yesterday

India’s national economic Planning Commission backed away yesterday from a controversial definition that any villager earning around Rs25 (50 cents) a day was not poor following a storm of protest. The poverty benchmark had been condemned by social activists as unrealistic - especially with India’s soaring inflation. Last month, the commission told the Supreme Court that those with a daily income of Rs25 in villages rising to Rs32 (65 cents) in cities, were above the poverty line. Some 70% of Indians live in villages. The poverty line measure is used to help determine government welfare benefit entitlements. Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said it had not been the commission’s intention to suggest that “benefits should be limited to those below the poverty line.” The poverty definition submitted to the court “was clearly a rock bottom level of existence” and was not an acceptable standard of living for the “common man,” he told a news conference. “We know that very well everybody at that level of existence is under significant stress and even above that level households are vulnerable,” he said. The results of a new census survey would be used for defining who should be entitled to government welfare benefits, he added. “The Planning Commission is not taking the view that benefits should be restricted to only those below the BPL (below the poverty line),” he said. While India boasts a burgeoning class of urban rich thanks to a rapidly expanding economy, hundreds of millions of people still face a lack of food, clean water and proper housing. Ahluwalia’s statements came after Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh and several states where tens of millions of poor are dependent on state entitlements criticised the new poverty benchmarks. Social activists had also challenged Ahluwalia to live on Rs25 a day and prove that it was enough money on which to survive. The commission had told the court that anyone earning more than Rs25 in villages and Rs32 in cities would have enough funds for “food, education and health.” The census “will seek to ensure that no poor or deprived household will be excluded from (welfare) coverage,” Ahluwalia and Ramesh said in a joint statement. “We are now clearly, categorically and unequivocally saying there is no link between state-wise poverty estimates done by Planning Commission and the selection of (welfare) beneficiaries,” Ramesh told the same news conference. “I have had an hour long discussion (with Ahluwalia) on the relation between poverty line and the rural development programme. We have reached a broad consensus,” Ramesh said.The clarifications come a day after Ahluwalia met the prime minister and briefed him on the issue.Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is also learnt to have expressed concern over the poverty line cut-offs. National Advisory Council members Aruna Roy and N C Saxena were also critical of the poverty line cut-offs. Saxena said only dogs and animals can live at Rs32 a day and said people spending that kind of amount were the poorest of the poor.Around 37% of India’s 1.2bn population are currently deemed to live below the poverty line and are being given subsidised food and cooking fuel through state-owned stores. Critics of the Planning Commission’s submission to the court had said it had been an attempt by the government to reduce India’s official number of poor.