New Delhi:
As it preps for general elections, the Congress-led UPA government has got some brownie points from a planning commission report that said poverty, both in rural and urban India, had declined in the last eight years. But the panel continues to use controversial poverty benchmarks, in this report capped at Rs 27 a day for rural India.
In calculating poverty figures, the Planning Commission is still using the controversial Tendulkar method to determine the poor. It says that people whose consumption of goods exceeds 33 rupees in cities, and 27.20 rupees per day in villages are not considered poor.
The report said the number of people living below the poverty line has shrunk to 21.9 per cent in 2011-12 from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05 on account of increase in per capita consumption. Also, rural poverty has declined faster than urban poverty.
Alleging a conspiracy by UPA ahead of general elections, the BJP slammed the latest figures in the report. "This is a cruel joke on the poor of the country. In a bid to show that they have reduced poverty, they are throwing people out of BPL," BJP spokesperson Prakash Javdekar said today. "This is a conspiracy by the government to deny people benefits of BPL," he added.
"We challenge Congress leaders to live in 34 rupees a day in urban and 28 rupees in rural areas for just a day," he said.
Last year, the commission had triggered a major controversy by saying anyone who spends more than Rs 32 per day in urban areas is not poor. This criteria was criticised as being unrealistic and unmindful of present day realities.
The BJP's opposition to the latest figures could stem from results showing Congress states like Rajasthan beating Narendra Modi's Gujarat in poverty alleviation. The plan panel has listed Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh as better performing states on alleviation of poverty.
It said the poverty ratio was highest in Chhattisgarh, followed by Jharkhand, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Bihar, which while showing a big decline in poverty, still remain among the poorest states.
Among the union territories, the Dadra and Nagar Haveli was the highest, with 39.31 per cent people living below poverty line followed by Chandigarh at 21.81 per cent.
Goa has the least percentage of people living below the poverty line at 5.09 per cent followed by Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh.