According to the Planning Commision of India, a person living in urban India is not poor if he can spend more than Rs. 32/day and in rural areas the ceiling gets lowered to Rs 26/day. First thought which came on reading this news article was has the government any idea of the real ground situation? Have they done any reasearch into real cost of living at all? So if a person can't spend Rs 961/month he is "below poverty line" and it seems over 40 crore Indians are below this cutoff, which is an even bigger disgrace. And this is the government mandated poverty line. The more realistic number would be even higher.
Below is the break-up of how the figure had been arrived.
- Rs 3,860/month for a family of 4 living in the 4 metro cities.
Daily Expenditure
- Cereals - Rs. 5.50/day
- Pulses - Rs. 1.02/day
- Milk - Rs. 2.33/day
- Edible Oil - Rs. 1.55/day
- Vegetables - Rs. 1.95/day
- Fruits - Rs. 0.44/day
- Sugar - Rs. 0.70/day
- Salt & Spices - Rs 0.78/day
- Other Foods - Rs. 1.51/day
- Fuel - Rs. 3.75/day
Monthly Expenditure
- Rent & Conveyance - Rs. 49.10/month
- Healthcare - Rs. 39.70/month
- Education - Rs 29.60/month
- Clothing - Rs. 61.30/month
- Footwear - Rs. 9.60/month
- Other Personal Items - Rs 28.80/month
Wonder which era the Suresh Tendulkar Committee is living in? Have they tried themselves living with such resources for a week, forget a month. And all this from a government headed by a "renowned" economist. This seems to be an exercise undertaken in reverse gear. Instead of trying to find out the number of people under poverty line by fixing the line, it seems to have pegged the number and then fixed the line accordingly. And if this is not the case then it makes me wonder what kind of 5 year Plans are built on this basis.
Here is an interesting blog on the subject: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/developmentdialogue/entry/let-s-count-the-poor-but-first-here-s-the-answer
Here is an interesting blog on the subject: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/developmentdialogue/entry/let-s-count-the-poor-but-first-here-s-the-answer
6 comments:
It's really hurting...Government could not irradicate poverty.So decreasing BPL level...So sad
This is ridiculous. Does the committee have any idea of cost of living in urban centres?
@deepbaazigar & Hariharan welcome to the blog and thanks for the comments.
The Planning Commission does seem totally cut off from reality.
There are two aspect to this.
a. Is this enough ?
b. when and how frequently this is updated ?
Here is a a bit detailed opinion of mine.
a. Well, by no means this is enough. However, someone who is going through this situation knows how to manage their lively hood with such a small amount.
b. Before commenting on this we must remember this used to be INR 20 until sometime back which is raised to INR 32.
If one has higher income and tries to look at this .. it is always impossible, however raising this limit to very high let's say INR 100 or so would not be feasible for the government to manage. After all it would be public money ( income tax ) would be used to deal with it and .. common man would get kicked by the higher income tax.
People should work and do not rely on governement to help them.
Note: These are my views, every individual has their own views..
Hi MHD
With this amount maybe people can survive, and there are many who probably do as well. We will never realise how they do so.
And - Everyone's views are welcome in this blog :)
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