Rajeev Shukla says "Poverty line not fixed by government, but by Tendulkar Committee'

Clarifying the recent controversy on the poverty line figures, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajeev Shukla said here today that the Government has not fixed any poverty line, and it was a report of the Tendulkar Committee put forward by the Planning Commission.

"I want to demolish this myth that the poverty line has been fixed by the government. Government has not fixed any poverty line. This recommendation has been made by an expert panel headed by Mr. Tendulkar. This is a report of the Tendulkar Committee which has been put forward by the Planning Commission. Neither the Government has accepted it nor has it fixed it," he said.

Shukla also said that the Government has asked the Rangarajan Committee to look into the poverty line figures and their report is expected to come out by mid 2014. He also urged the people to wait for the Committee's report before initiating any debate in the country on this issue.

He said that BJP leaders have no moral authority to talk about the poverty line because during their regime, the poverty line was below the recommendation of the Tendulkar Committee.

"During NDA regime, poverty line was 30 percent lower than what Tendulkar Committee had recommended. Today they are talking about Rs 30 or Rs 27 per day and criticizing the government. During their time they had fixed the poverty line at Rs 16-18 per day," he said.

He further said that National Sample Survey (NSS) figures have shown that that poverty has declined during UPA regime and added that there should be a comparison between poverty figures during NDA and UPA regime

He said that according to the data during NDA regime poverty declined at the rate of 0.8 percent while in UPA regime poverty declined at the rate of 2.2 percent. "Poverty has gone down because many social welfare schemes like MNREGA etc have been launched. So saying that poverty has not declined is wrong," he said.

The Planning Commission said in its report on July 23 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 , was estimated at Rs. 816 per capita per month for rural areas and Rs. 1,000 per capita per month for 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.