Why the statistics on the country's poor is meaningless

If govt data is to be believed, a massive 133 million people have moved out of poverty in seven years

Are the poor actually vanishing? Well, the answer will depend upon how do you classify the poor. With multiple institutions and multiple definitions of who constitute the poor, there are bound to be multiple answers to the question.

Going by the latest official release of data by the Planning Commission, India has now only 21.9% of its population living below the poverty line in 2011-12 as compared to 37.2% in 2004-05.  In absolute numbers this implies that a massive 133 million people have moved out of poverty over a period of seven years. According to a World Bank report released sometime in April 2013, India accounted for 33% of the world’s poor, indicating that India is still a major ground for the implementation of poverty eradication programmes.

There is no doubt that the method of computation of the poverty line leaves much to be debated. Opponents – political and otherwise – have already started slamming the claim on the grounds that the methodology does not reflect the ground reality and this clamour is going to grow louder by the day. However, this debate is meaningless

For the time being even if we assume that the statistics released by the Planning Commission is indeed true and there has been a reduction in the absolute numbers, this does not throw any light on the quality of life of the poor who are migrating above the poverty line into prosperity (sic). This particular human resource is supposed to contribute to nation building but in reality it lacks in basic qualities. One often heard statistic is that in India around 53% of malnourished children are not defined as income poor. If the government continues to define poverty in monetary terms, these kids would be just fine. All of us know the deplorable conditions in which these kids live and survive.

Health, education and living conditions are the three most critical parameters against which human development needs to be mapped. On all these parameters the progress made by India leaves a lot to be desired. In such situations, merely making a claim of reduction in the absolute number of poor in India is meaningless. The time is now ripe for the government to measure poverty through a multidimensional poverty index, which captures not only the incidence but also the intensity of poverty. By using a monetary measure alone, the poor may vanish from India (as per the Planning Commission) but the country will not be free from the poverty of hunger, health and living conditions.