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In the face of widespread criticism for scaling down of poverty estimates by the Plan panel, the Government on Thursday set up a new five-member expert panel to identify the poor and revisit the methodology.
The expert group is expected to give its report in 7-9 months, the Minister of State for Planning Mr Ashwani Kumar, said here.
The technical group will be headed by Dr C. Rangarajan, Chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council. The other members are Dr Mahendra Dev, Director, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research; Dr K Sundaram, formerly of Delhi School of Economics; Dr Mahesh Vyas, Centre of Monitoring Indian Economy; and Dr K.L Datta, ex-adviser, Planning Commission, according to an official release.
In March this year, the Planning Commission was flayed by the Opposition parties, its allies and civil society when it scaled down India's poverty ratio to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10, based on Rs 28.65 per capita daily consumption in urban areas and Rs 22.42 in rural areas.
Poverty estimates are crucial for identifying the poor for extending entitlements under various welfare schemes.
Terms of reference
The terms of reference of the panel include recommending how the poverty estimates should be linked to eligibility and entitlements for Government schemes and programmes.
The panel will also comprehensively review the existing methodology of poverty estimation and examine whether the poverty line should be fixed solely in terms of the consumption basket or whether other criteria are also relevant. “If so, whether the two can be effectively combined,' the release said.
The technical experts will also look at methods of poverty estimation in other countries and indicate whether any particular method can be evolved for measuring poverty in India.
The Government said it set up a new panel after taking note of various points of view in the public domain with respect to the need to revisit poverty estimates as well as the methodologies.
The earlier estimation was done by using the Tendulkar Committee methodology, which defined the poverty line by calculating per capita spending on food, education and health.
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