(a) the details of recommendations of the Tendulkar Committee on review of the
methodology for estimation of poverty which have been accepted by the Government
so far;
(b) the status of action taken on the recommendations accepted by the Government;
(c) the time by which the recommendations would be implemented;
(d) whether fresh estimation has been/is being carried out on people living below poverty
line as per the recommendations of the Tendulkar Committee; and
(e) if so, the details thereof?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF PLANNING AND MINISTER OF STATE
IN THE MINISTRY OF PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (SHRI V. NARAYANASAMY)
(a) to (e): A statement is laid on the table of the House.
STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) to (e) OF LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 59
REGARDING TENDULKAR COMMITTEE REPORT RAISED BY SHRI DATTA MEGHE AND SHRI G. M. SIDDESHWARA
FOR ANSWER ON 28th JULY, 2010
(a) to (e): The Planning Commission constituted an Expert Group to review the methodology
for estimation of poverty in India under the Chairmanship of Prof Suresh D. Tendulkar in
December 2005. The Expert Group submitted its report on 8th December 2009. The salient
features of the report are as under:
i. The Expert Group has acknowledged the multi-dimensional nature of poverty and
recommended the estimates of poverty may continue to be based on private household
consumer expenditure collected by National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO).
ii. The Group has recommended moving away from anchoring the poverty lines to the calorie
intake norm.
iii. In line with the decision of the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), the Group
has recommended to adopt the Mixed Reference Period (MRP) based estimates of
consumption expenditure as the basis for future poverty lines as against the existing practice
of Uniform Reference Period (URP).
iv. The Expert Group has also recommended MRP equivalent of urban Poverty Line Basket
(PLB) corresponding to 25.7% urban headcount ratio as the new reference PLB to be provided
to rural and urban population adjusting with the price differentials.
v. The proposed poverty lines are reported to have taken into account the adequacy of actual
private expenditure per capita near the poverty lines on food, education and health by
comparing them with normative expenditures consistent with nutritional, educational and
health outcomes.
The report of the Committee is available at the website:
www.planningcommission.gov.in. The Committee has recommended that the urban poverty
line need not be changed, but the rural poverty line should be raised to reflect the basket of
commodities that can be purchased at the urban poverty line after allowing for the difference
in urban and rural prices. The Tendulkar Committee has recomputed poverty lines for individual
states for 2004-05 on this basis and are given in Annexure I. In the Mid Term Appraisal, it
has been indicated that the revised poverty lines recommended by the Tendulkar Committee have
been accepted by the Planning Commission for 2004-05. The estimates of poverty at all India
level are given below.
Table
Estimates of Population in Poverty
(Percentage below the poverty line)
Year Official Estimates Tendulkar Committee Urban Rural Total Urban Rural Total
1993-94 32.4 37.3 36.0 31.8 50.1 45.3 2004-05 25.7 28.3 27.5 25.7 41.8 37.2