Poverty declined to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10

Rajya Sabha today witnessed noisy scenes during the question hour with the opposition members protesting against media reports on fall in the poverty levels. As soon as the House met for the day, opposition members were on their feet to raise the matter for a debate. Amidst protests, Mr S S Ahluwalia of the BJP said that attempts are being made to end the poverty line and begin starvation line in the country. Responding to this, the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Mr Rajiv Shukla said the members can raise the issue during the discussion on Union Budget beginning tomorrow. He said if the members still want a response, he would request the Planning Minister to respond. Later, the House took up the questions listed for the day.

Going by the controversial daily consumption number of Rs 28.65 per day, one out of every three Indian is poor as per the new Planning Commission's estimates which have pegged the poverty ratio in 2009-10 at 29.8 pc, down from 37.2 pc in 2004-05

An individual above a monthly consumption of Rs 859.6 in urban cities and Rs 672.8 in rural areas (at pier 2009-10 prices) is not considered poor, says the Planning Commission's estimate based on the controversial Tendulkar Committee methodology.

The Plan panel has kept the poverty threshold in its recent estimates lower than Rs 32 per capita per day consumption in urban cities and Rs 26 in rural areas is provided last year which were based on June 2011 prices.

The Plan panel had said that, in its affidavit before the apex court that the "poverty line at June 2011 price level can be placed provisionally at Rs 965 (Rs 32 per day) per capita per month in urban areas and Rs 781 (Rs 26 per day) in rural areas.

The civil society had questioned this definition stating it was very low.As per estimates released today, the number of poor in India has declined to 34.47 crore in 2009-10 from 40.72 crore in 2004-05.The methodology recommended by the Tendulkar Committee includes spending on health and education, besides the calorie intake.Among religious groups, Sikhs have lowest poverty ratio in rural areas at 11.9 per cent, whereas in urban areas, Christians have the lowest proportion of poor at 12.9 per cent.Poverty ratio is the highest for Muslims, at 33.9 per cent, in urban areas.

Further, poverty in rural areas declined at a faster pace than in urban cities between 2004-05 and 2009-10.