Rangarajan to head panel for reviewing poverty line

The Planning Commission today announced the constitution of a new expert panel to be headed by the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council chief C Rangarajan to revisit the methodology for estimation poverty levels. The move comes in the wake of the Plan panel facing strident criticism for having fixed the poverty line at just Rs 28.65 per capita daily consumption in cities and Rs 22.42 in rural areas based on Tendulkar Committee recommendations. The group is expected to submit its report in 9 months.

Justifying the need for a fresh panel to re-visit the poverty estimates,minister of state for planning Ashwani Kumar said that people’s perspective about poverty has changed and the discussions and debates on the issue has shifted from penury to the need for basic rights. “Everybody wears Reebok shoes and people ride scooters instead of cycles,” he said,justifying the changing lifestyle of people and their perspective about poverty.

The state-wise poverty lines and poverty ratio for 2009-10 have been computed following the extant Tendulkar methodology. Based on the said methodology the Commission released the estimates through a Press Note issued on March 19 according to which the poverty ratio in the country has come down from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10.