When the Planning Commission, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an economist, submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court recently, specifying a benchmark of Rs.32 and Rs 26, per day expenditure on food items, in urban and rural areas respectively, to determine Indians above the poverty line, it could not have imagined a nation-wide furore against this bizarre line of thinking. All sections, including politicians, media, thinkers were aghast and furious at the utter insensitivity of the Planning Commission whose CEO is Prime Minister Singh's crony and colleague of his World Bank days, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Two leading members of Mrs Sonia Gandhi's National Advisory Council(NAC), Aruna Roy and Harsh Mander, in an open letter, angrily asked Dr Ahluwalia to withdraw the affidavit or quit his office. He was told how can he mock the poor when he is drawing a salary without perks nearly 2000 times of Rs 32? Maybe more? Clearly, the economist has lost touch with Indian reality as he seems to be living in an ivory tower! Aruna and Mander are right in insisting that if he cannot withdraw the affidavit, Montek Singh must go.
Unfortunately, while clarifying the Commission's approach under pressure from the ruling party, the opposition and the people at large, that the govt's schemes aimed at uplifting the deprived will not be confined only to those falling under the BPL category, Dr Ahluwalia, in a public appearance, however, defended the benchmark as "factually correct" which was based on the Suresh Tendulkar committee recommendations. His contention was that it was fixed in 1973. If so, how could nearly a four-decade-old "rock bottom level of existence" be relevant today? Was Tendulkar's the last word in judging the lowest level of poverty? Have our economic experts remained static in their thinking and ideas in these years? Then, why is Ahluwalia promoting crazy benchmarks? If poverty-alleviation programmes are meant to help all deprived Indians irrespective of the cap of Rs 32 and Rs 26, then what is so sacrosanct about these ridiculous figures? Why can't the panel experts conceive of some more relevant, innovative method to calculate the percentage of Indians living below the poverty line year after year and tell us when we can expect to get rid of this curse of poverty substantially, if not fully?
Unfortunately, while clarifying the Commission's approach under pressure from the ruling party, the opposition and the people at large, that the govt's schemes aimed at uplifting the deprived will not be confined only to those falling under the BPL category, Dr Ahluwalia, in a public appearance, however, defended the benchmark as "factually correct" which was based on the Suresh Tendulkar committee recommendations. His contention was that it was fixed in 1973. If so, how could nearly a four-decade-old "rock bottom level of existence" be relevant today? Was Tendulkar's the last word in judging the lowest level of poverty? Have our economic experts remained static in their thinking and ideas in these years? Then, why is Ahluwalia promoting crazy benchmarks? If poverty-alleviation programmes are meant to help all deprived Indians irrespective of the cap of Rs 32 and Rs 26, then what is so sacrosanct about these ridiculous figures? Why can't the panel experts conceive of some more relevant, innovative method to calculate the percentage of Indians living below the poverty line year after year and tell us when we can expect to get rid of this curse of poverty substantially, if not fully?
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