Counting the poor: Measurement and other issues

Abstract

In June 2012, the Government of India appointed an Expert Group (C. Rangarajan as Chairman) to take a fresh look at the methodology for the measurement of poverty. The Committee submitted its report towards the end of June 2014. The purpose of this article is to briefly explain the approach taken by this Expert Group (Rangarajan) and also to clarify some of the issues raised by few researchers and others on the report recently. This paper first presents approach of Expert Group (Rangarajan). The clarifications are given under the following heads: (1) what is new in the approach for poverty line; (2) Use of calories; (3) Multi-dimensional poverty; (4) High urban poverty in many states; (5) NAS-NSS consumption differences; (6) poverty measure in other countries; (7) public expenditure and poverty; (8) poverty ratio under eligibility under programmes. As the most of the researchers commented on multi-dimensional poverty, this note elaborates on the reasons for not undertaking this measure in the report.