Brinda Karat critical of UPA, says 'poverty figures adding salt to wounds of the poor'

Taking a jibe at the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre over the recent poverty figures by the Planning Commission, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Brinda Karat on Wednesday said that these statistics is actually adding salt to the wounds of the poor.

"It is making a mockery out of the conditions of the poor in this country and they are using a methodology that they themselves agreed is not reflecting the reality on the ground before the Supreme Court," Karat said.

"But once again, a completely discredited, dubious and an unacceptable methodology is being used, which keeps the poverty line at starvation level, and they want to show that there is a magic wand that the UPA has through which they have removed poverty," she added.

Karat further said that these poverty estimates need to be accurate as they are linked to many welfare schemes of the government like food security etc. and also challenged the Planning Commission to try and live at Rs. 30 per month.

The Planning Commission said in its report yesterday that the poverty ratio in India has declined to 21.9 percent in 2011-12 from 37.2 percent in 2004-05 on account of increase in per capita consumption.

According to the commission, in 2011-12 the national poverty line by using the Tendulkar methodology for rural areas is estimated at Rs. 816 per capita per month and Rs. 1,000 per capita per month in cities.

This would mean that the persons whose consumption of goods and services exceed Rs 33.33 in cities and Rs 27.20 per capita per day in villages are not poor.

The percentage of persons below poverty line in 2011-12 has been estimated at 25.7 percent in rural areas, 13.7 percent in urban areas and 21.9 percent for the country as a whole.