<b>Geetanjali Krishna:</b> The need to redefine poverty

A recent conversation with a middle-aged domestic worker made me realise how different the definition of poverty is, from the actual experience of it. It began when I overheard two women discussing how to split a third woman’s ration quota for the month. 

Apparently, Meena, the woman in question, was the proud holder of a priority ration card, which the government issues to households earning less than Rs 1 lakh per annum. She was going to her village for a month, and had asked her neighbours to buy all the rice and wheat issued to her at the rate of Rs 3 and Rs 2 respectively per kilo. She was a considerate neighbour, the women said, “Whenever she doesn’t need something from her quota, she sells it to us.” 

 

Further conversation revealed that Meena’s annual household income was way above Rs 1 lakh, making her ineligible for the card. All four members of her household, herself included, earned no less than Rs 8,000 each in a month. How had she managed to get hold of the card? And did the government not ever check to see if the beneficiaries of its food subsidies actually had the low incomes that they had declared to get the card?

As it so often happens, when I spoke to the woman in question, I got a perspective that I had not even considered. “Twenty years ago, when my younger daughter was to be born, I had to quit work,” Meena said. “My husband, a mason, had a monthly income of Rs 4,000 at that time, but his work was irregular.” She was heavily pregnant when doctors told her that she needed better nutrition. “I cried and told them that I had to forgo a meal now and then to ensure that my three-year-old son ate properly,” she said. The doctors put her in touch with an NGO that helped her obtain, what was known in those days as a Below Poverty Line ration card. “This piece of paper probably kept us alive in those days,” she said. 

Over the years, their household income improved, but she hung on to her card. Those days of poverty — and the prospect of sliding back into it — continued to haunt her. “I know today, all is well and I don’t need this ration card,” she said. “That is why I distribute the ration among my neighbours.”

It probably also kept them from complaining against her, I surmised. “Tomorrow could be different; my children could move out; old age or disease could prevent my husband and me from working.” People like us have no job security,” she said. “Sometimes, I lie awake at night thinking how easy it would be for us to again be in a situation where this piece of paper could be our salvation yet again.”

Meena left me with the growing realisation that it is imperative for economists and policymakers to take a relook at the definition of poverty. A snapshot of present income cannot, and should not be the only indicator of economic health — any viable definition must also take into account, the risk a household on the happier side of the poverty graph faces, of sliding to the wrong side. 

If one broadens the definition of poverty in this fashion, the interests of universal food security will not be met by limiting food subsidies to the lucky few, who have managed to get cards. Instead, perhaps, subsidies should be extended to all those who need them at that given point in time… Meanwhile, Meena went off to redistribute her Rs 2-per-kilo wheat among the neighbours — perhaps implementing informally, some of the very changes the government needs to make in India’s food security policies.