Rangarajan panel submits report on poverty to PlanComm

Former PMEAC chief C Rangarajan has submitted the report on Tendulkar Committee methodology for estimating poverty to Planning Minister Rao Inderjit Singh.

"I met Minister of State for Planning Rao Inderjit Singh yesterday in Delhi and submitted the report on poverty," Rangarajan told PTI.

The Planning Commission in May 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.

Asked about the suggestions or recommendations of panel, he replied, "It is not proper for me to tell you. Now government has to take a view on the report."

The expert group was to submit its report in 7-9 months of its creation. But it got several extensions with the last one extended 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.

Announcing the setting up of Rangarajan panel, the then Planning Minister Ashwani Kumar had stressed on the need for revisiting the methodology.

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% in 2011-12 from 37.2% 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.