Arguing that "poverty cannot be abolished", eminent India-born British economist, author and Labour Party politician Lord Meghnad Desai today said the better approach will be to concentrate on the core problems of poverty and try to remove them. "Abolishing poverty is a never ending quest. Poverty Line (PL) is not a single straight line, but wobbles up and down depending on income and consumption. The concept of poverty also changes with economic growth. Whatever we do, it cannot be abolished," Desai said.
He was speaking at Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) foundation lecture organised here on 'Can poverty be ever abolished?' Desai added that even developed countries have failed to abolish poverty entirely. Around 15 per cent of population in the US is poor. If we see Hispanic and black communities there, the incidence of poverty will be in the higher range of 20 per cent, he noted. The economist, who is also a member of the governing board of Nalanda University (NU), said poverty is not just about food and clothes, but also includes, education, leisure activities, health and deprivation from technical advancements.
"The problem with uniform, single poverty line is that it is very convenient, but the fact is that it cannot be so as consumption patterns fluctuate according to income, inflation and community. The number of people keeps going above and below it. Desai said there have been many debates on how to define poverty and India's poverty numbers have been based on a calorific standard, later augmented by Suresh Tendulkar, which indicates that 21.9 per cent of population here is below poverty line.
"However, the estimates of India's poverty can range from 21.9 per cent to 80 - 90 per cent depending on whether we take World Bank or Arjun Sengupta's recommendations as the measuring rod," added Desai. The Indian-born member of British House of Lords, who is also a Padma Bhushan awardee, said we need to concentrate on the core problems of poverty and try to remove them. We should stop calorie-based poverty concept and develop community-based standards of poverty by interacting with people, he added.
Desai advocated the need to look backward to see whether what was considered poverty 40 or 50 years ago has been abolished, and the necessity to inculcate a forward looking approach of aiming high to tackle poverty because "society needs a sense of achievement, as well as, aspiration".
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