Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | My data versus yours by MK Venu

My data versus yours by MK Venu

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Sep 22, 2010   modified Modified on Sep 22, 2010


It’s been often asked why our officialdom, with all the intellectual capital at its command, is unable to quantify the number of the really poor in India. Is this such a difficult thing to do? It is all the more baffling because in recent times, the debate on India’s poverty has only further confounded ordinary citizens. The Planning Commission had come up with an assumed deprivation ratio of 27.5 per cent. This meant 27.5 per cent of India’s population lived below the poverty line, defined as a minimum per capita income threshold of Rs 3,816 per annum.

Of course, this figure has been hotly contested by those who believe poverty levels are being understated. With some variations in methodology, the Suresh Tendulkar Committee put the deprivation ratio at 37 per cent some time ago. Tendulkar used a slightly higher income threshold and showed many more living under the poverty line. The World Bank finding reveals that 42 per cent of the people are below the poverty line, which it defines as individuals living under $1.25 a day on a purchase power parity (PPP) basis. Effectively, $1.25 on a PPP basis works out to about Rs 20 a day in rupee terms.

The Arjun Sengupta Committee stunned everyone with its finding that 78 per cent of India’s population lived on less than Rs 20 a day per capita. So with some variations in minimum income threshold and methodology, the assumed deprivation ratio, ranges from 27.5 per cent to 78 per cent! The question is, who should one believe?

If you ask economists or any thinking citizen, they choose any of these figures depending on their ideological predilection. Broadly, those to the left of centre tend to believe Arjun Sengupta and those to the right reject it saying that the actual fall in the poverty ratio has been quite sharp in the past two decades. The centrists, of course, are in a state of utter confusion. So they broadly go by the World Bank data which appears somewhat middle-of-the-road.

Interestingly, some of these findings have been challenged by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER)’s extensive and well-regarded surveys on asset ownership by Indian households. For instance, the NCAER data on how India earns and spends reveals that about 23 per cent of those categorised as below poverty line by the Tendulkar Committee own pressure cookers. Over 10 per cent of them own two-wheelers. This casts a serious doubt over whether this lot might indeed be so poverty stricken. The assumption here is only those who eat reasonably well would buy a pressure cooker or own a two-wheeler. The Financial Express had recently published the NCAER’s asset ownership findings, correlating them with the bottom 37 per cent of the population that Tendulkar has shown as below poverty line. Tendulkar himself is a bit surprised by the asset ownership profile of the poorest 37 per cent of the population and is now looking at the NCAER data.

It becomes even more glaring when asset ownership is applied to Sengupta’s deprivation ratio. Of the 78 per cent of the population shown as living on less than Rs 20 a day, a good 25 per cent own two-wheelers and 40 per cent own pressure cookers. About 25 per cent of this segment also own colour televisions. You could then argue whether someone truly deprived would be riding a two-wheeler or watching colour TV.

This clearly leads one to the conclusion that the traditional methods of calculating the poverty ratio must be reviewed, and new ways must be found to really determine the nature of consumption in rural India. It is now widely accepted that rural consumption kept India’s growth ticking after the 2008 global meltdown. This is endorsed even by companies which actually sold products in rural India. If that is true, then it would be hard to believe that the bulk of rural India is living below the poverty line, as some surveys would seem to suggest.

The need of the hour is get away from the tired old methodologies used to determine poverty ratios and get down to some truly village-level exercises to find out how people consumed 20 years ago and how their lives have changed now. This is not rocket science. You just need common sense here, not some great statistical mind. The debate on poverty must be rescued from the current lot for whom dealing with poverty ratios has become an end in itself. It is not aiding public policy in any constructive manner except to add more bitterness in the ongoing debate.

In this context, a very refreshing village-level survey was designed and implemented recently by a group of economists and Dalit intellectuals in Uttar Pradesh (Devesh Kapur, Chandra Bhan Prasad, Lant Pritchett, D. Shyam Babu). UP has among the highest poverty ratios and Dalit households are historically the most deprived, both socially and economically. So this group concentrated their study on Dalit households in two blocks, one in Azamgarh district in east UP and another in Bulandshahr in west UP. The survey recorded changes in social and material well-being over the decades since 1990. This covers the entire period of economic reforms.

The survey has found major changes in both social and material well-being among Dalits, accompanied by better eating and grooming habits. The survey has also found a marked erosion in discriminatory processes that stigmatised Dalits. Compared with the 1990s, there is a much higher level of asset ownership, especially of basic consumer durables. Ownership of bicycles, fans, TVs and mobile phones has increased by 33-50 per cent of the households in 2007, compared to 1990. Besides, pucca housing ownership increased from 18 per cent to 64 per cent in eastern UP. In Bulandshahr district, pucca housing ownership has gone up to 94 per cent in 2007, from 38 per cent in 1990.

Similarly, another survey conducted by a scholar at the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies shows that Dalits are indeed moving towards self-employed entrepreneurial activities in and around places like Panipat, Karnal and Saharanpur. The study quantified 321 Dalit entrepreneurs in these small towns running shops and providing other forms of skill-based services in construction, etc. The bulk of the self-employed entrepreneurs have come up in the last 15 years. According to Surinder Jodhka, who conducted the study, “Dalits have developed the capacity to diversify into occupations other than those they were traditionally employed in.” They are also helping other Dalits enter these services.

The larger point is, people-focused surveys done at the ground level do show a lot of improvement in material well-being in the traditionally poverty ridden pockets of India. Somehow, this does not square with the top-down data-led interpretations that poverty levels have not come down in any significant manner over the past 15 years or so. It is time we de-ideologised the determination of poverty level in India by conducting a more intensive people-focussed survey.

The Indian Express, 9 September, 2010, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/My-data-versus-yours/679289

Tagged with: Poverty



Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

Im4Change.org हिंदी वेबसाइट का परिचय. Short Video on im4change.org...

Im4Change.org हिंदी वेबसाइट का परिचय. Short Video on im4change.org...

"Session 1: Scope of IDEA and AgriStack" in Exploring...

"Session 2: Farmer Centric Digitalisation in Agriculture" in Exploring...

"Session 3: Future of Digitalisation in Agriculture" in Exploring...

Objectives | About Us | Workshops | Disclaimer
share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close