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Estimating and Identifying the Poor in India |
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K.P. Kannan |
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This paper argues for estimation and identification of the poor in India beyond the confines of a single poverty line based exclusively on consumer expenditure. It starts with a critique of the recommendation of the Tendulkar Committee that continues to preserve the legacy of a line in disregard to the stark reality of multiple manifestations of poverty of the Indian people. As an illustration to show the pitfalls of a single line, the paper shows the crowding of households just above the poverty line and up to a stage where more than three-fourths of the Indian people live below an international poverty line of two Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) dollars per capita per day. The burden of the paper is to argue that poverty needs to be seen as a matrix where multiple manifestations are associated with the whole population and certain special groups who have to bear the brunt of the historical baggage of social exclusion. |
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