New Delhi, Sep 23 (ANI): The Planning Commission has in an affidavit to the Supreme Court said that Rs. 25 per day was sufficient for a person living in a rural area for their expenditure on food, education and health.
The panel told the apex court that after adjusting for inflation, the rural poverty line was pegged at Rs. 25 per day, which ensures the adequacy of actual private expenditure.
The panel said that individuals spending of Rs. 32 per day in the cities fall in the Above Poverty Line (ABL) category.
Supreme Court lawyer, Colin Gonsalves, said that the Central Government has wrongly estimated the poverty line in order to artificially reduce the number of poor. Moreover, due to this erroneous decision, only one-third of the poor people will be entitled to Below Poverty Line (BPL) card and government-sponsored schemes.
"Today, after counting for inflation, the Planning Commission has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court, saying that the poverty line is fixed at Rs. 31 expenditure per day per person, which means that if you spend Rs. 32 per day, you are no longer poor, you will not get a BPL (Below Poverty Line) card," said Gonsalves.
"And the implication of not getting a BPL card is, you will not get treatment in government hospitals free, no government scheme will you get, because you don't have a BPL card. And it is absolutely shocking to have the poverty line fixed at Rs. 31," he added.
The Planning Commission responded to a direction from the court to revise norms of per capita amount and update its poverty line figures to reflect rising prices. The poverty line is based on expenditure as on June 2011.
India has been struggling to contain inflation, which is at a 13-month high of 9.78 percent.
The direction was given after the court learnt that the Tendulkar Committee had fixed daily earning of Rs. 20 in urban areas and Rs. 15 in rural areas to define a BPL family.
The committee had determined the poverty line at the 2004-05 prices.
Gonsalves further said that according to official figures, 37 percent of the country's 1.21 billion people live below the poverty line.
"The poverty line should be at the minimum wage. The minimum wage to keep body and soul together in Delhi for unskilled workers is Rs. 240 per day. Then why did they fix the poverty line at Rs. 31? If they fix the poverty line at Rs. 240, 85 percent of Indians will fall below the poverty line and everybody will have a BPL card, " said Gonsalves.
"Today in our country, one-third of the poor are getting BPL cards, the rest are not getting BPL cards and the Prime Minister and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and they are doing this only for international audiences. To tell them that that globalisation has succeeded in this country, with globalisation our poverty people are only 35 percent. Globalisation has failed," he added.
The Planning Commission also told the apex court that 360 million Indians are now being supplied with subsidised food and cooking fuel, through the network of state-owned shops.
A World Bank report in May said that attempts by the Indian Government to combat poverty were not working and aid programmes were beset by corruption, bad administration and under-payments. (ANI)
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