A panel headed by C Rangarajan, former Chairman of PMEAC (Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council), has dismissed the Tendulkar Committee report on estimating poverty and said that the number of poor in India was much higher in 2011-12 at 29.5 per cent of the population, which means that three out of 10 persons are poor.
In the report submitted by Rangarajan to Planning Minister Rao Inderjit Singh earlier, persons spending below ₹47 a day in cities would be considered poor, much above the ₹33-per-day mark suggested by the Tendulkar Committee.
According to the Rangarajan panel, poverty stood at 38.2 per cent in 2009-10 and slid to 29.5 per cent in 2011-12. This is at variance with the Tendulkar methodology under which poverty was estimated at 29.8 per cent in 2009-10 and declined to 21.9 per cent in 2011-12.
The Planning Commission’s estimates based on Tendulkar Committee had drawn flak in September 2011, when in an affidavit to the Supreme Court it was stated that households with per capita consumption of more than ₹33 in urban areas and ₹27 in rural areas would not be treated as poor.