By IANS,
New Delhi : The government Thursday set up a technical panel to review the Tendulkar Committee methodology for deciding the poverty line for which it has under increasing criticism in recent months.
The technical group panel headed by the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council Chairman C. Rangarajan will “revisit the methodology for estimation of the poverty and identification of the poor,” the Planning Commission said in a statement.
Based on the methodologies suggested by Tendulkar Committee, it was said that those who consume more than Rs.28.65 per daily in cities and Rs.22.42 in rural areas were not poor.
Accordingly, the poverty ratio in India fell from 37.2 percent in 2004-05 to 29.8 percent in 2009-10. And the number of poor persons in the country has reduced from 40.7 crore in 2004-05 to 35.5 crore in 2009-10.
This methodology has been facing flak from different quarters of the society as the stated amount is ridiculously low.
“Taking note of the various points of views and perspectives expressed in the public domain with respect to the need to revisit poverty estimates and related methodologies, Government has since decided to set up an Expert Technical Group to revisit the methodology for estimation of the poverty and identification of the poor,” the Commission said.
Other members of the panel include Mahendra Dev, director, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, K. Sundaram from Delhi School of Economics, Mahesh Vyas from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy and K.L. Datta, ex-adviser (Perspective Planning) at the Planning Commission.
The new technical group panel has been asked to “review alternative methods of estimation of poverty which may be in use in other countries, including their procedural aspects; and indicate whether on this basis, a particular method can be evolved for empirical estimation of poverty in India, including procedures for updating it over time and across states.”