{"id":243122,"date":"2023-05-19T20:25:58","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T14:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=243122"},"modified":"2023-05-19T20:25:58","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T14:55:58","slug":"poverty-in-india-is-yet-again-being-overstated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/poverty-in-india-is-yet-again-being-overstated\/","title":{"rendered":"Poverty in India is yet again being overstated"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source:\u00a0<\/strong>The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cPoverty in India is yet again being overstated\u201d <\/strong>published in the\u00a0Livemint <\/strong>on\u00a019th\u00a0May 2023.<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

Syllabus<\/strong>: GS \u2013 2: Issues relating to poverty and hunger.<\/p>\n

Relevance<\/strong>: About India’s recent poverty measurements.<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: As the 2024 elections approach, the Great Indian Poverty Debate has again started. As the government has not released the 2017-18 Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES), many theories on poverty estimates are emerging.<\/p>\n

What are the necessary factors in poverty measurement?<\/h2>\n

Head count<\/strong>: There has to be a consumption (or income) level below which individuals are deemed poor i.e. the \u201chead count\u201d. But population sizes differ, so the headcount becomes the percentage who are poor.<\/p>\n

Accounting inflation<\/strong>: Large countries like India and China have differential spatial (urban, rural, and state) rates of inflation. So, there is a need for state-specific poverty lines.<\/p>\n

Raise the poverty line accordingly<\/strong>: There is a need to change the level of poverty line with development i.e. as a country becomes richer (less poor), the poverty line should be raised.<\/p>\n

About India’s poverty measurement criteria<\/h2>\n

According to newspaper reports, the government is undertaking two back-to-back consumer surveys. But the questionnaire remains pretty much the same as in 2011-12.<\/p>\n

The only major change is, to get more accurate reporting, each household will be visited thrice instead of once. First<\/strong>, for questions pertaining to seven-day consumption (fruits and vegetables). Second<\/strong>, for measuring 30-day consumption (most items).\u00a0Third<\/strong>, for more durable items (recall period of 365 days).<\/p>\n

World Bank and other experts, including Nobel laureate Angus Deaton, recommended having food questions on a weekly basis recall (rather than monthly) since the late 1990s. Post 2011-12, the government accepted a Modified Mixed Recall Period (MMRP) method<\/strong> has become the official, and only, method of data collection by NSS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more: We shouldn\u2019t let Indian poverty turn into a great eternal mystery<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

What are the various theories on India’s poverty estimation?<\/h2>\n
\"poverty
Source: Livemint<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Why experts are suggesting India’s poverty has reduced significantly in recent times?<\/h2>\n
\"India's
Source: Livemint<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Firstly<\/strong>, over the last decade (2011-12 to 2021-22), per capita GDP in India has increased by a cumulative 52%. Further, the real per capita consumption (national accounts data) grew at a healthy 3.13% CAGR, for an aggregate increase of 37%.<\/p>\n

Secondly<\/strong>, average consumption increases by 37%. For example, the World Bank estimates a 67%\u00a0 \u201creasonable\u201d pass-through of private final consumption expenditure (PFCE) growth to household consumption growth.<\/p>\n

Thirdly<\/strong>, few experts said that India’s poverty remains constant around 20-25%. But the constancy of the poverty rate is not correct. Because a)<\/strong> According to the MMRP method, poverty in India in 2011-12 was 10 percentage points lower at 12.4%, b)<\/strong> The 2017-18 survey did not collect data for any method other than MMRP. So, the poverty lines should not be constant.<\/p>\n

Fourthly<\/strong>, the World Bank has recently updated its poverty estimates for India and other countries. It said that the pace of poverty reduction is considerably higher during the post-2013 period.<\/p>\n

According to World Bank estimates, the pace of poverty reduction in 2015-2019 was almost twice the rate of reduction between 2004-05 and 2011-12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more: There is no debate: There has been a persistent decline in poverty in India<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

At present, three organizations (NSSO, NCAER and CMIE) have ongoing surveys on consumption and therefore estimates of poverty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source:\u00a0The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cPoverty in India is yet again being overstated\u201d published in the\u00a0Livemint on\u00a019th\u00a0May 2023. Syllabus: GS \u2013 2: Issues relating to poverty and hunger. Relevance: About India’s recent poverty measurements. News: As the 2024 elections approach, the Great Indian Poverty Debate has again started. As the government has not released… Continue reading Poverty in India is yet again being overstated<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10501],"class_list":["post-243122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-live-mint","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}