The Planning Commission seems in the grip of a poverty of ideas on how to determine the number of poor people in India. This left Yojana Bhavan a divided house on Thursday as serious differences emerged between deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and minister of state for planning Ashwani Kumar.
Two days after Mr Ahluwalia released poverty estimates, Mr Kumar junked the figures, saying the government would constitute a new technical group to work out a fresh methodology to determine the number of poor. This group will revisit the Tendulkar Committee methodology to calculate the number of poor people.
The commission earlier set the cutoff to measure those below the poverty line at daily per capita consumption of `28.65 in urban areas and `22.42 in rural areas.
Mr Kumar contradicted Mr Ahluwalia’s contention that BPL cutoffs were not linked with entitlements under various pro-poor schemes, clarifying benefits to the poor would be given on the basis of estimates by the new expert group, which will be set up within a month.
When asked if this decision was a knee-jerk move by the government following an outcry in the country, Mr Kumar said: “The decision was taken in December 2011, how could this be under pressure?” Asked if Mr Ahluwalia was unaware of this, as he had announced the estimates just two days back, Mr Kumar avoided a direct answer.