40 crores of Indians are
extremely poor – if we go by the estimates and the extreme poverty line of the
United Nations.
The only catch is – if we go by
the Indian estimates – many of them are not poor and most of them are not ‘as
extremely poor as the UN finds’ – as propounded by the by the Indian Government
standards – an exercise that began with a Planning Commission working group in
1962, continuing with four other exercises, to come again to the ‘unacceptable’
Poverty Lines (Urban/Rural) of the Rangarajan Committee which submitted its
report last month, a report that got public this month – but has failed to come
with logical and sociologically viable Poverty Line(s) for a society that has
the maximum number of world’s poor (including the ‘extreme’ poor).
If we take the Tendulkar
Committee’s Poverty Lines, being used by the Government of India and the
Planning Commission so far, before Mr. Rangarajan’s figures were reached at –
as expected, at Rs. 75 a day (with US$ to Re. exchange rate of 60), this
extreme UN Poverty Line is almost double to the new urban Poverty Line of Rs.
47 as decided by the noted economist C. Rangarajan after almost 2 years of
work.
There is no intent to downplay
the work of Mr. Suresh Tendulkar or Mr. Rangarajan who was entrusted to find a
way to correct the anomalies in the Tendulkar Lines. They, like others,
who were assigned to research and give us an acceptable ‘Poverty Line’, have
been the economists of eminence. The problem is, even our most common
common-sense cannot allow us to accept that one can be termed ‘not poor’
based on the ‘poor’ expenditure limit of Rs. 47 a day in cities and Rs. 32 a
day in villages.
Even the added sums of Rs. 7,035
per month for urban areas and rural monthly expenditure limit of Rs. 4,860 –
for a family of five – though look fatter on paper – are grossly
inadequate – even the most uncommon common sense would fail to suggest a
monthly expenditure plan for such families that could support the basic minimum
requirements to survive – food, clothes, shelter, medicine and education (in
descending order of priorities) – simply impossible – unless a hugely
compromised living style (that most of the Indians are forced to live with) is
accepted as a way of living – a practice that our politicians and policymakers
have been comfortable with.
Mr. Rangarajan’s estimates and
study have been able to travel just worth Rs. 14 – from Mr. Tendulkar’s Poverty
Lines (Urban – Rs. 33 a day / Rural – Rs. 27 a day) – in literal sense and on
social obligations – some say the comparative outcome is ‘much higher’ – what a
‘much practiced’ way to reduce the number of poor in India – so what, if the
global community weighs us on a different and more practical scale.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com
