There’s an ongoing controversy on where to draw the poverty line. N C Saxena, former secretary to the government and now in the National Advisory Council, had chaired an official panel to devise criteria to identify the poor for the ongoing below-poverty-line (BPL) census. Edited excerpts of a talk on the issue with Sreelatha Menon:
What is your view of the Rs 31/Rs 25 demarcation that divides the poor from the not-so-poor?
It does not matter what line divides the poor from the not-poor. What matters is that even according to the government affidavit in the Supreme Court, 40 crore people are living even below the Rs 31 (urban)-Rs 25 (rural) poverty line (daily income data). They are living a dog’s life. It is there in the affidavit. What is urgently needed is to address the needs of these people and bring them out of poverty.
What should the government do? Not review the poverty line?
What is the point having a higher poverty line? The government must identify the poor correctly. And, remove their poverty. The things it now does for the poor don’t reach the poor. The least that can be done is to improve the mechanism to reach the poor. A woman in Faridabad had 925 ration cards in her name! That is the important issue. How can you prevent this kind of thing?
It is the poverty line that determines who gets what.
Remember, there is very little earmarked for poor. All are general schemes, whether NREGA, ICDS or mid-day meals. The Planning Commission says there are 60 per cent errors of inclusion and exclusion in poverty identification. So, that is totally irrelevant.
The government is embarrassed by the attacks of the Opposition and civil society about the low poverty line and is facing demands to review this.
The government should not feel embarrassed at all. For more than 30 years, this poverty line has continued. The same poverty line must continue. There is no point in altering it. The focus should be on reducing the number that falls below it.
What has been the success so far in reducing the number of poor?
Fifty years ago, the people below the poverty line were 20 crore. Now, they are 40 crore. That is the failure we have to focus on.
Isn’t the best way to target these people to have benefits earmarked?
If you earmark for the poor, it will go to the rich. Our tragedy is that there is no way to identify the poor. Where is the delivery machinery to reach benefits to people?
If the poverty line is to remain at Rs 31 and Rs 25, how do you improve the lot of the poor above that line?
The government must have good programmes. NREGA, ICDS and PDS all have design flaws. You have to monitor these, evaluate these, improve governance. We have to focus on this, rather than diverting attention to issues like raising the poverty line. What difference does it make to a man dying of hunger if you raise the poverty line to Rs 60 or even Rs 100? He will die unless you feed him.
Critics say the poverty line (fixation) would deprive many people from Public Distribution Scheme benefits.
Not true. The Food Security Bill does not target the BPL. So, where is the question of people above the BPL being left out? It targets priority groups and this is not the same as BPL. It is BPL and 10 per cent more. That makes it 46 per cent (of the population).
Is the poverty line 50 years ago comparable with the one given by the Tendulkar committee?
It is, except for property and petrol prices. But the poor don’t use these. The poverty line was Rs 49 a month for rural areas and Rs 57 a month for urban areas. So, if you earned Rs 2 a day, you were not poor. Rice used to cost Rs 1 per kilo in 1972-73, when this first poverty line was devised. Now, you get it (a kg of rice) for Rs 15. I was food controller in the 70s and I remember that food prices then and now are comparable. Therefore, there is no reason why the poverty line should be tinkered with.
