A week after the Planning Commission submitted to India’s top court an affidavit on its assessment of who the poor are, several leading economists have urged the government to delink food entitlements from what they call “faulty” poverty measures. Last week, in an affidavit to the Supreme Court, India’s apex planning body said the spending threshold per capita for the poverty line was Rs.32 per day (per person) in cities and...

-The Business Standard   After generating much controversy back home on the Planning Commission's “unrealistic definition” of poverty line, India had to field some tough queries in Washington over the matter. Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu said the government was looking at various parameters of poverty estimates to provide better coverage to the vulnerable section through a proposed food law. "...now we are going to go into a new food security programme, where we...

-The Indian Express   In the backdrop of adverse reactions against poverty lines filed by the Planning Commission in the Supreme court this week, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has described the below poverty line (BPL) household identification methodology “approved by the Cabinet” as “least justifiable on political grounds” and a “sure recipe for political confrontation”. At the same time, he has conceded that it was the one with “best acceptability as far...

Objecting to the Planning Commission's poverty estimates and worried about the outcome of a case pending before the Supreme Court, the UPA government on Thursday underlined the need for reworking the BPL (Below the Poverty Line) cap in a bid to do away with any kind of cap, which has become a matter of controversy. Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh shot off an eight page e-mail letter to the Deputy Chairman...

-The Hindu   Faced with strong reactions to its affidavit on the poverty line estimates filed in the Supreme Court on Monday, the Planning Commission may re-visit the issue and, if necessary, file an amendment in the court. Sources in the Commission indicated that another committee of experts was likely to be set up to dispel the “confusion” and arrive at a more realistic estimate of poverty numbers that were “multi-dimensional” and to...