NEW DELHI, Aug 23:
The expert group set up under Prime Minister’s economic advisory panel chairman C Rangarajan to review methodology of measuring poverty line will sumbit its report within a year.
“The Expert Group will submit its report to the Planning Commission within a year,” Minister of State for Planning, Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Ashwani Kumar told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.
The five-member expert group, set up in June 2012, will examine the criterion of fixing poverty line, review alternative ways of poverty estimation, suggest ways to update consumption poverty lines using new consumer price indices for rural and urban areas.
Besides, it will recommend how estimates of poverty should be linked to eligibility and entitlements for schemes and programmes of the Government, Kumar said.
The minister said that the Planning Commission has accepted the poverty lines and poverty ratios estimated by Tendulkar Committee for 1993-94 and 2004-05 and also followed its methodology for estimation of poverty for 2009-10.
“… The Expert Group under the chairmanship of Rangarajan has been given comprehensive terms of reference for computation of poverty estimates,” he added.
Replying to a question on norms of assessing poverty line, he said the Planning Commission estimates the percentage and number of people living below poverty line on the basis of large sample survey data of National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) household consumer expenditure.
Based on Tendulkar Committee methodology, the poverty line at all India level for 2009-10 was estimated at Rs 673 for rural and Rs 860 for urban areas, he said. (PTI)
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