In April, India’s Planning Commission accepted recommendations put forth by the so-called Tendulkar Committee on a new poverty headcount for the country. Constituted by the Planning Commission under economist Suresh D Tendulkar, the committee, after four years and a new methodology, arrived at a new figure for the number of Indians living below the poverty line: 37.2 percent, ten points higher than the previous official figure. With the government’s subsequent...

A significant proportion of the country’s official below poverty line (BPL) population cannot be termed ‘poor’. Fathom this: around a fourth of the 14 million odd BPL households in urban India own a two-wheeler, a third of them a colour TV and almost two-third a pressure cooker. Almost one in five urban BPL households has at least one well-educated, graduate or above, member. The 56 million-strong rural BPL population too exhibits...

Is the Planning Commission too singularly focused on reducing food subsidy and intending to dissuade people from buying subsidized food rations even as the government spends thousands of crores to store excess grains in its stocks? Is it being penny wise but pound foolish? An internal note of the Plan panel suggests so. A note prepared by the panel reveals some startling information. On April 1, 2010 -- normally the...

One of the first issues the reconstituted National Advisory Council (NAC) will have to deal with is the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA). Given the inability of the government to control food prices that remain unacceptably high and the scant regard the ruling United Progressive Alliance has shown for food security, it should be taken up on an urgent basis if the government is to preserve its credibility among...

The government may shift to per capita allocation of foodgrains and raise the price of wheat and rice meant for the Above the Poverty Line (APL) population under the Public Distribution System (PDS) to meet the objectives of the proposed National Food Security Bill. Raising the price of APL foodgrains is an “unavoidable adjustment,” the Planning Commission has said in a note it has prepared for the Sonia Gandhi-headed National...