New modified Poverty line: Rs 66 for cities, Rs 35 for villages

          Here are a new set of official statistics that can escalate the politically contentious debate on what constitutes the poverty line.

          If average monthly consumption expenditure is taken as the benchmark of what an individual needs to survive, the poverty line would be Rs 66.10 for urban areas and Rs 35.10 for rural regions, while almost 65% of the population will be below this cut-off.

          The figures based on the 66^th round of the National Sample Survey for 2009-10, provides a more realistic market for estimating both of the poverty line and population below it than the Planning Commission’s calculation of Rs 28.65 per capita per day for cities and Rs 22.42 for village areas.

          The rural and urban all-India averages for monthly expenditures are Rs 1,054 and Rs 1,984 per person daily, respectively, and if these are projected on the expenditure-population curve, the population below this works out to 64.47% (rural) and 66.70% (urban). Official sources said the exercise was carried out as a part of a study and is based on NSSO data largely available in the public domain. While the government is revising its parameters, the monthly averages might be a useful means of estimating where to draw the poverty line.

           With almost all states showing more than 60% of populations below the monthly expenditure averages, the oft-repeated claim that 70% of India lives on less than $2 a day have a ring of truth in it. The Planning Commission said that it will set up a technical committee soon to measure the actual poverty line properly.