It is worrying that the Tendulkar method, chosen by the Planning Commission to calculate the poverty line in its latest figures, underestimates the levels of poverty while overestimating poverty reduction. The figures show that 29.8% or 360 million Indians were poor in 2009-10 as compared to 37.2% or 400 million in 2004-05. A poor person has been defined as one who spends R28 per day in urban areas and R22.5...
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About 70% of India is poor: Top adviser
-IANS Debunking the government's claim that the number of poor in India has come down, a top adviser has claimed that around 70 % of the country's 1.2 billion population is poor, and stressed the need for a multi-dimensional assessment of poverty. "The government claim that poverty has come down is not valid... there is a need for a multi-dimensional assessment of poverty as around 70% of the population is poor," National Advisory...
More »Govt scraps Planning Commission's poverty formula
-The Times of India The Centre on Thursday junked the Planning Commission's poverty definition with PM Manmohan Singh saying that there was a need to devise another method. "We need a multi-layered approach to assess poverty estimates. The Tendulkar Committee estimates have been followed for 30 years but not an inclusive estimate. It (Tendulkar report) is not satisfactory," Singh said on the sidelines of the Padma Awards function. A new team will devise...
More »Is this the end of the road for MGNREGA?-Niranjan Rajadhyaksha
In an interview with Mint in February, Jairam Ramesh, minister of rural development, was asked whether the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) would be rolled back in the upcoming budget as part of a plan to reduce the fiscal deficit. “How can we roll back a demand-driven programme?” Ramesh had replied. But that is precisely what seems to have happened. On Friday, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee announced a...
More »India sees biggest dip in poverty, but 360 mn remain poor-Chetan Chauhan
Rural people have driven India's record decline of 7.4 percentage points in the number of poor since economic reforms were initiated in the early 1990s. The latest poverty estimates by the Planning Commission show that 29.8% or 360 million Indians were poor in 2009-10 as compared to 37.2% or 400 million in 2004-05 — the difference being equal to the population of countries such as Spain, Argentina and Canada. The plan...
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