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New Delhi: Debunking
the government's claim that the number of poor in India has come
down, a top adviser has claimed that around 70 percent of the
country's 1.2 billion population is poor, and stressed the need
for a multi-dimensional assessment of poverty.
"The government claim that poverty has come down is not valid...
there is a need for a multi-dimensional assessment of poverty as
around 70 percent of the population is poor," National Advisory
Council member N.C. Saxena told IANS in an interview.
According to Saxena, the various poverty estimates the government
relies on to assess the impact of developmental schemes are faulty
as they fail to factor in the lack of nutritional diet,
sanitation, drinking water, healthcare and educational facilities
available to the people.
The former bureaucrat, who now is part of the NAC that reports to
Congress president Sonia Gandhi, claimed that not only the
National Sample Survey Organisation data is faulty, the ongoing
Socio-Economic and Caste Census, which is expected to throw up the
latest poverty estimates, is highly flawed.
"The NSSO data is unreliable and the SECC is highly flawed," said
Saxena.
The National Advisory Council (NAC) was set up as an interface
with civil society. The NAC provides policy and legislative inputs
to the government with special focus on social policy and the
rights of disadvantaged groups.
After the government faced flak over its latest poverty estimates,
according to which anyone earning over Rs.28 per day in urban
areas and Rs.26 per day in rural areas is not poor, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh said a multi-layered approach is required to assess
poverty as the widely accepted Tendulkar committee report "is not
all inclusive".
The government now plans to set up another expert panel to devise
a new methodology to assess poverty levels in the country, said
the prime minister.
The government recently revised its poverty estimates from earlier
Rs.32 per day in urban areas and Rs.26 per day in rural areas
based on 2011 prices, to the current estimate which is based on
2009 prices.
Using the Tendulkar panel report, the Planning Commission pegged
poverty at 37.5 percent of the population.
Saxena said in reality out of about 200 centrally sponsored
schemes, only 5 or 6 are linked to the poverty estimates, pegged
at 37.5 percent by the Planning Commission.
Having a realistic assessment of poverty in not only crucial for
the government to ensure that around Rs.80,000 crore that it
spends on various welfare schemes annually reaches only the
genuinely poor, it is also important for the United Progressive
Alliance which hopes to roll out the ambitious National Food
Security Bill, which aims to provide subsidised rations to around
65 percent of the 1.2 billion population some time next year.
(Amit Agnihotri
can be contacted at amit.a@ians.in)
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