A new method for defining the poor was announced by the Planning Commission on Monday in the face of all-round criticism after it told the Supreme Court anyone earning more than Rs 32 a day was not poor.
Reversing its current policy of capping the number of people below the poverty line in states based on a poverty line decided by the centre, the commission will now have a new number for the poor. Those who fall in the “priority sector” in the new Food Security Bill when it is enacted.
The government on Monday said the Food Security Bill was a work in progress and the numbers decided for the Bill would ultimately determine the number of beneficiaries for other targeted schemes. The identification of beneficiaries for various schemes that target the very poor will be done on the basis of the BPL census, which is currently on. The final word on the criteria will be a new committee’s, the composition of which was announced on Monday.
The expert committee will be set up by the Planning Commission and will comprise all states and representatives of civil society organisations. It will have the final say on the criteria to determine the beneficiaries for various programmes. It will arrive at a consensus on the methodology for determining the number of people getting various benefits. However, the benchmark for the numbers for all schemes would be set by the Food Security Bill.
The expert committee would ensure the exclusion (of the ineligible from poverty programmes) methodology is consistent with the Food Security Bill as it finally' emerges, a joint statement by Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and rural development minister Jairam Ramesh said on Monday.
Ahluwalia sought to undo the harm caused to the commission by the controversy over the affidavit, and said it was never of the view that Rs 32 or Rs 25 a day was sufficient to live comfortably. He described the affidavit as merely a reiteration of the findings of the Tendulkar committee on poverty estimation.
Addressing a joint press conference with Ramesh, he said in future, the poverty line would have no link with the number of beneficiaries of any centrally funded scheme.
Ahluwalia denied the panel was going to withdraw the old affidavit or change its position on whether Rs 32 was enough for a person to be above poverty levels. “We are not going to change this to say Rs 36 or Rs 38 should be the new poverty line. What we are doing is to delink these numbers from the allocation of funds to states for various poverty alleviation schemes,” he said.
He said the Tendulkar poverty line would remain a relevant reference point comparable to past estimates of poverty. Ramesh said only nine per cent of the Rs 100,000 crore spent by the rural development ministry went for schemes that targeted the BPL category.
