A reply provided by the Union government to a Right To Information (RTI) query raised by Down To Earth (DTE) has raised more questions than it actually answered.
Are 270 million (269.78 million) people in India still living below the poverty line (BPL), or have there been any changes in this decade-old data?
Are people in rural areas still considered poor if they survive on less than Rs 816 per month, and would they be classified as poor if they earn less than Rs 1,000 per month or has the threshold for basic survival increased in the past decade?
These fundamental questions are crucial because they form the basis of the government’s policymaking.
If the government is targeting the poor sections of the society by referring to these old statistics in its current key schemes, then it is safe to say that the risk of policies being flawed runs high.
These questions should be answerable by the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
However, the ministry sent DTE’s RTI application to the country’s apex public policy think tank, the NITI Aayog, which itself responded by stating that the questions should be redirected to the relevant ministries and state governments.
This means that the questions ended up in a not-so-merry go round with no government ministry or institution willing to answer them.
However, what is now known is that the Indian government doesn’t have much information when it comes to the state of poverty in the country. Or perhaps the answers are not documented, as NITI Aayog stated that only answers to questions available to public authorities will be provided.
Nevertheless, two things are well established: there’s no singular, official data available on the poor population, there’s no official definition of the word ‘poor’
The RTI response referred to a report titled National Multidimensional Poverty Index: A Progress Review 2023 published on July 17, 2023, with the collaboration of United Nations Development Project (UNDP) and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).
According to this report, between 2015-16 and 2019-21, 135 million people escaped ‘multidimensional poverty’ in India.
The report also highlighted a significant reduction in the percentage of people in multidimensional poverty — from 24.85 per cent in 2015-16 to 14.96 per cent in 2019-21.
DTE had sought this information from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on December 12, 2024, and received a response on December 16, 2024.
The RTI query asked: “What is the official and current definition of poverty by the Government of India? Please provide the specific criteria used to classify individuals or families as poor.”
In the response received from NITI Aayog on December 16, 2024, it was mentioned that the “Poverty Estimates 2011-12” press note is available in the public domain and can be accessed on the website.
Down To Earth studied this publicly available press note to find the answer.
In fact, this press note, issued in 2013 by the Planning Commission, provided national and state-level poverty estimates.
These estimates were based on consumer expenditure surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
The press note, released in July 2013, comes from the previous central government, which did not provide an official definition of the term ‘poor’ but instead described the estimation of the poverty line and poverty ratio using consumer expenditure surveys by NSSO conducted in 2009-10 and again in 2011-12 (NSSO 68th Round). Such surveys are typically conducted every five years. The key findings of the survey were released on June 20, 2013.
The NSSO documented the expenditure of 120,000 families. Since these families had different numbers of members, NSSO divided each family’s expenditure by the number of members to determine the monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE). In 2011-12, the survey followed the Tendulkar methodology.
According to the survey, the national poverty line was estimated to be Rs 816 per person per month in rural areas and Rs 1,000 per person per month in urban areas. Thus, for a family of five, the poverty line was Rs 4,080 per month in rural areas and Rs 5,000 per month in urban areas.
This survey estimated that around 270 million people in India were living below the poverty line, with approximately 216.7 million in rural areas and 53.1 million in urban areas.
However, when asked in the RTI query about the number of people in the BPL category in 2024, the response was that they did not have this information.
Furthermore, the RTI also stated: “In January 2024, a discussion paper titled ‘Multidimensional Poverty in India: After 2005-06’ was released, which included estimates of multidimensional poverty from 2005-06 to 2022-23. According to this paper, India’s multidimensional poverty reduced from 29.17 per cent in 2013-14 to 11.28 per cent in 2022-23. This means that over the last nine years, 248 million people have successfully come out of multidimensional poverty.”
Based on the RTI response, it seems that many of the 270 million people who were living below the poverty line in 2012 have managed to escape this situation. There has been a significant improvement in the poverty statistics. However, it’s important to note that the 248 million people who have moved out of poverty have escaped multidimensional poverty, which does not include income-related poverty or the dimension used to measure poverty in India.
All our development projects are targeted towards the ‘poor’ who are defined based on the poverty line, which is based on surveys (poverty in India is measured through income levels estimated from expenditure data).
The RTI response also reveals that India has not conducted any poverty surveys since 2011.
Although the consumer expenditure surveys have been conducted, no data on income-related poverty is available, which is the primary basis for measuring poverty.
The multidimensional poverty index considers health, education, and living standards, which are divided into 12 indicators. However, not including income and consumption expenditure data overlooks a crucial aspect of poverty.
Poverty statistics are essential for assessing a country's economic progress. The government needs this data to accurately estimate the number of beneficiaries in poverty alleviation schemes, such as the Public Distribution System (PDS).