Poor Data Or Poor Analysis?

Information provided by the NSSO data were not used to estimate poverty, says Lavesh Bhandari & Amaresh Dubey

The poverty ratios for the 1990s have generated heated debate about the effect of economic reforms on the Indian poor. From the moment a recent World Bank study pronounced that the rural poverty in India has increased by one percentage point, those opposed to the reforms have apparently found a platform to rail about the futility of trying to reduce poverty by raising growth rate through economic reforms. Economists sympathetic towards economic liberalisation have been groping for explanations. Questions are being raised over the reliability of the data collected by the National Sample Survey Organisation, used for calculating poverty. This article attempts to show that there is nothing wrong with the NSS consumer expenditure data. This is the same data set that has given us