The expert group, set up to review the methodology of measuring the poverty line, will submit its report within a year, Minister of State for Planning, Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Ashwani Kumar told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply on Thursday.
The five-member expert group, headed by C. Rangarajan, Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, was set up in June after an uproar in Parliament and outside over the Planning Commission’s methodology of estimating poverty.
The Opposition parties had flayed the poverty line cut-offs of Rs 29 per person, per day in urban areas and Rs 22 in rural areas set by the Plan panel.
The poverty line is crucial for targeting various Government welfare schemes to the weaker sections.
The expert panel is now examining the criterion of fixing the poverty line and suggesting ways in which it should be linked to eligibility and entitlements for schemes and programmes, Kumar told Parliament.
He said the Plan panel had accepted the poverty lines and poverty ratios estimated by Tendulkar Committee for 1993-94 and 2004-05 and also followed the same methodology for estimation of poverty for 2009-10.