On the margins of the strategic economic dialogue between India and China in Beijing on Monday, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia fired a salvo in defense of a Sept. 20 affidavit to the Supreme Court that fixed poverty line estimates at a lowly 25 rupees ($0.50) a day for people in rural areas and 31 rupees a day for those in urban areas.
People under the poverty line, which has varied over the years, are entitled to highly subsidized food grains and pulses as well as kerosene oil coupons and gas cylinders, but the measure is prone to criticism because many believe it is arbitrary and doesn’t do justice to the much greater levels of poverty that actually exist.
Brushing aside the volley of criticism by civil society activists that greeted the affidavit, Mr. Ahluwalia pointed out that it was “wrong” to accuse the government’s top think-tank of wanting to restrict food subsidy to 32% of the population, when “in internal discussions, we have said we are willing to go up to 41%.”
His remark elicited yet another sharp reaction, a measure of the highly charged nature of the prolonged poverty debate that has over the last 15 years ranged governments of varying ideological persuasion, the Supreme Court as well as development activists on different sides of the divide.
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