Biggest dip in poverty, but 360 mn remain poor

Rural people have driven India's record decline of 7.4 percentage points in the number of poor since economic reforms were initiated in the early 1990s. The plan panel defines the poor as one who spends less than Rs 28 per day in urban areas and Rs 22.5 in rural areas. Chetan Chauhan reports. Juggling numbers

Updated on: Mar 20, 2012, 09:35:39 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Rural people have driven India's record decline of 7.4 percentage points in the number of poor since economic reforms were initiated in the early 1990s.

The latest poverty estimates by the Planning Commission show that 29.8% or 360 million Indians were poor in 2009-10 as compared to 37.2% or 400 million in 2004-05 — the difference being equal to the population of countries such as Spain, Argentina and Canada.

The plan panel defines the poor as one who spends less than Rs 28 per day in urban areas and Rs 22.5 in rural areas.

These figures are lower than the Rs 32 in urban areas and Rs 26 in rural areas for the year 2010-11, given to the Supreme Court by the panel. The annual fall in poverty during the period under survey was 1.4 percentage points as compared to 0.8 percentage points between 1993 and 2004.

The data shows that non-UPA-ruled states, except Maharashtra, have done better than UPA-ruled states.

Uttar Pradesh and five northeastern states were the only ones where the number of poor increased.

Plan panel deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia attributed the decline to the UPA government's “successful” inclusive growth strategy.

Panel officials gave two reasons for the decline — the per capita income doubling in these five years as compared to 10 years earlier and a rapid decline in fertility rates. “A smaller family with more income is prosperous,” an official explained.

But social activists are not impressed. Biraj Patnaik, the Supreme Court’s food commissioner described the figures as an insult to the poor and unrealistic.

“Can someone survive for a day on Rs 28 in urban areas and R22.5 in rural areas?” he asked, adding that the data will create “needless controversy and confusion”.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Stay updated with the latest Business News on Petrol Price, Gold Rate, Silver Rates, Diesel Prices along with Income Tax Calculator