With the outcomes of the primary spherical of Family Client Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2022-23 now obtainable, India ought to think about engaged on a brand new estimate for poverty line, stated Bibek Debroy, Chairman, Financial Advisory Council to the Prime Minister.
“We nonetheless would not have an official poverty line after Tendulkar [Committee] and the multidimensional poverty index isn’t fairly a poverty line. Ought to we now have a brand new poverty line by which this information can be utilized,” he famous at a Information Customers Convention on the family shopper expenditure survey on Wednesday.
Up to now, the erstwhile Planning Fee periodically estimated poverty traces and poverty ratios for every of the years for which the HCES was carried out.
The final HCES for which ends up can be found pertain to 2011-12. In December, 2005, the Planning Fee constituted an Skilled Group underneath the Chairmanship of Suresh Tendulkar to overview the methodology for estimation of poverty. The Tendulkar Committee submitted its report in December 2009 and computed poverty traces and poverty ratios for 2004-05.
Later, a committee led by C. Rangarajan was set as much as overview the methodology for the poverty line as there have been issues that the Tendulkar poverty line was too low. Nevertheless, the Planning Fee later up to date the poverty estimates for 2011-12 as per the methodology beneficial by the Tendulkar Committee.
In the meantime, the NITI Aayog had lately launched the multidimensional poverty index, in line with which 250 million folks moved out of poverty between 2015 and 2024.
Addressing the convention, Debroy additionally famous that whereas enhancements within the HCES 2022-23 methodology are fascinating however make any specific survey non-comparable with the opposite one. He additionally requested whether or not it’s a good factor that the Gini coefficient has declined. “Because the financial system grows and prospers, inequality tends to widen a little bit bit,” he stated. The outcomes of the consumption expenditure survey reveal that inequality in India has declined over the previous decade.