C Rangarajan Committee on Poverty presented its report to Union Government

C Rangrajan Committee to review the Methodology for Measurement of Poverty presented its report to the Union Planning Minister Rao Inderjit Singh in the first week of July 2014.

The report retained consumption expenditure estimates of NSSO as the basis for determining poverty. On the basis of this, it pegged the total number of poor in India at 363 million or 29.6 percent of the population. This is higher than 269.8 million poor people or 21.9 percent pegged by the Suresh Tendulkar committee.

Highlights of the Report
• The daily per capita expenditure is pegged at 32 rupees for the rural poor and at 47 rupees for the urban poor.
• Poverty line based on the average monthly per capita expenditure is pegged at 972 rupees for rural India and 1407 rupees for urban India.
• The all-India poverty line in terms of consumption expenditure for a family of five is estimated at 4760 rupees per month in rural areas and 7035 rupees per month in urban areas in 2011-12.
• The percentage of people below the poverty line in 2011-12 was 30.95 in rural areas and 26.4 in urban areas.
• The respective ratios for the rural and urban areas were 41.8 percent and 25.7 percent, respectively, and 37.2 percent for the country as a whole in 2004-05.  In 1993-94, it was 50.1 percent in rural areas, 31.8 percent in urban areas and 45.3 per cent for the country as a whole.
• In 2009-10, about 91.6 million people were lifted out of poverty as compared to 454.6 million poor in 2009-10.
• The poverty rate fell by 8.7 percentage points in 2009-10 under the Rangarajan formula against a 7.9 percentage point fall under the Tendulkar methodology.