Poverty & its estimation

Story hook

In 2011-12, the Planning Commission filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court that caused a national uproar. It said that anyone spending more than about ₹27 a day in villages and ₹33 a day in cities was not poor. The country erupted. How could ₹27 a day — barely the price of a cup of tea and a samosa — be the line between poverty and dignity? The figure came from the Tendulkar Committee's poverty line, and the backlash was so fierce that the government hastily set up another committee under C. Rangarajan to redo the maths. Rangarajan raised the line — and India's poverty count jumped from 21.9% to 29.5% overnight, not because anyone got poorer, but because the definition changed.

That episode reveals a deep truth: "how many poor people India has" depends entirely on how you draw the line. For decades India measured poverty by a calorie-based "poverty line" — the money needed to buy a minimum number of calories. But a person is not just hungry calories; they may lack schooling, clean water, electricity, a toilet, healthcare. So India also adopted a Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) that counts these deprivations directly.

Today the story has a striking new chapter. The government has not released an official income-poverty line since 2014, but NITI Aayog says nearly 25 crore Indians escaped multidimensional poverty in under a decade — and the long-delayed 2022-23 consumption survey suggests poverty has fallen to single digits. Measuring poverty, it turns out, is as much about politics and method as about people.

Why this matters for UPSC

A classic, high-yield GS-III topic (inclusive growth, poverty) that examiners return to repeatedly. Prelims tests the committee sequence (Alagh → Lakdawala → Tendulkar → Rangarajan), the calorie norms, the Tendulkar vs Rangarajan figures, and the MPI (NITI Aayog's 3 dimensions, 12 indicators). Mains and interviews love the "how to measure poverty" debate, multidimensional vs income poverty, and the 2022-23 HCES data. It underpins every welfare-scheme and inclusive-growth answer.