PlanComm to take view on Rangarajan panel report on poverty

The Planning Commission is considering the report of Rangarajan panel, which reviewed the Tendulkar committee methodology for estimating poverty, but has not taken a view on it as yet, Planning Minister Rao Inderjit Singh said.
"We have received the report yesterday. We are considering it but we have not taken a view on it as yet," Singh told reporters here.
The Planning Commission in June 2012 had constituted the expert group under the then Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council Chairman C Rangarajan to review the Tendulkar Committee methodology for estimating poverty, following an uproar over the number of poor in the country.

The report of the expert group is expected to clear the ambiguity over the number of poor in the country.
Earlier in the day, former PMEAC Chairman C Rangarajan also admitted that he had submitted the report but refused to share the recommendations or suggestions given to government.
"I met Minister of State for Planning Rao Inderjit Singh yesterday in Delhi and submitted the report on poverty. It is not proper for me to tell you. Now, government has to take a view on the report," Rangarajan told PTI earlier in the day.

The expert group was to submit its report in 7-9 months of its creation. It got several extensions with the last one extending to June 30.

The Planning Commission's estimates had drawn flak in September, 2011 when in an affidavit to the Supreme Court it was stated that households with per capita consumption of more than Rs 32 in urban areas and Rs 26 in rural will not be treated as poor.
According to the Commission's estimates based on Tendulkar methodology, released in July last year, the poverty ratio in the country declined to 21.9 per cent in 2011-12 from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05 on account of increase in per capita consumption.
In 2011-12, the national poverty line by using the said methodology was estimated at Rs 816 per capita per month in villages and Rs 1,000 per capita per month in cities.

This meant that those persons whose consumption of goods and services exceed Rs 33.33 in cities and Rs 27.20 per capita per day in villages were not classified as poor.