For Planning Commission those who live below poverty line (BPL) are not “aam aadmi”. The new definition of “aam aadmi” has come at a time, when the Plan panel is facing flak over latest poverty numbers, which it released on Monday. According to the new numbers on poverty, those who spend `28.65 per capita daily in cities are poor.
When asked if the people living below the latest poverty line comprise the UPA government’s aam aadmi, the plank on which it won elections, deputy chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia said, “There are people who live below the poverty line, there are people who live marginally above the poverty line and then there is the aam aadmi and above them are the rich in the country.”
Claiming that the criticism in a section of press and by political opponents are misplaced, Mr Ahluwalia said, the poverty line estimate is not aimed at determining beneficiaries of different social benefit programmes of the government, rather it gives “us a tool to evaluate the efficacy of such schemes, which are aimed at reducing poverty”. Bringing out comparative figures of poverty between 1993-94 to 2004-05 and 2004-05 to 2009-10, Mr Ahluwalia claimed that since the day UPA came to power number of poor in country has decreased faster than that during the previous period. “For eleven years before the UPA came to power the rate of reduction in poverty was at 0.75-percentage point. But during last seven years it has doubled and we hope to take this momentum to 2-percentage point by the end of 12th Five-Year Plan,” he said.
Incidentally, according to the latest poverty figures, 29.8 percent of India’s population lives in abject poverty. If Mr Ahluwalia succeeds in meeting his target of reducing abject poverty by 2-percentage point every plan, the country would be rid of this curse in next 15 years, which has so far been considered just a mirage.
He felt that there is serious discrepancy in NSSO data and national accounts, which led to pegging the poverty line. “I do believe that the discrepancy between the consumer survey and national accounts, is a serious statistical problem. I have spoken to chief statistician of India,” he said.