'Pew's view that 75 mn pushed into poverty is an opinion survey'

"As India has eliminated low-income poverty and has become a lower-middle income country, it's more useful to start using the $3.2/day poverty line"

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) working paper — which estimated poverty in India till 2020-21 — is an important feedback for policy makers and researchers since there is no official poverty estimation after 2011-12. One of its authors and former chief economic advisor Arvind Virmani tells Indivjal Dhasmana that $3.2 on purchasing power parity (PPP)-basis per person per day could be taken as the poverty line in India. Edited excerpts:

The working paper has given poverty estimates based on both private final consumption expenditure (PFCE) and state gross domestic product (SGDP). Which one is more useful?

All our estimates are based