The problem with govt’s poverty line

Methodology error, intentionally manipulated data of poor quality and perilous local level political partiality is making the life of poor miserable and proved time and again that ‘any initiative for the poor tends to be a poor initiative.’

The erroneous way of assessing multi-dimensional indicators for locating the poor without making any distinction between facilities self-created by someone against facilities created through government schemes is nothing but an attempt to hide the extent of poverty. For example, if a poor person is able to construct a toilet and a pucca house under the Indira Awas Yojana, will it be correct to classify this particular person as not poor? Regrettably, the person in this circumstance will not be considered poor due to existing defective detection techniques, though it is clear that having a house or a toilet will never give any productive return or help the person ensure normal earnings.

Correspondingly, if a poor person obtains a radio, cycle or a TV set, which are now accessible at very cheap rates, will the person be termed rich? The existing misperception in the government’s belief that a ‘one-time offer of a toilet or a house to the poor will help these sections to come out from the poverty trap’ and subsequently considering these access factor as an affirmative pointer to prohibit these groups from being in the Below Poverty Line category is not going to help wipe out poverty. It is becoming clear that planners are trying their best to falsify the actual poverty numbers and are propagating a decrease in poverty levels to appease their masters.

Looking at the advantage attached to most of the welfare schemes, BPL is not just a statistical term, but is a lifeline for survival for the poor. Planners, with their statistical conjecture, must be more sensitive while talking about the poor. There is a saying that ‘statistics are like a bikini; what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.’ The planning commission seems to be more interested in playing hide and seek in the poverty numbers rather than put any serious thought to enchanting intervention for the poor.

Further, the much talked Gross Domestic Product-led development model has not given enough scope to gauge standard of living. Linking everything to GDP and vehemently assuming the decline in the number of poor people due to GDP growth is an added effort to dent bona fide identification methods. The inaptness of the GDP model is very much proved in its helplessness to compute social inclusion and a serious trepidation is that even a two-fold increase in growth rates does not necessarily help deliver expected prosperity among the common people and many a time can even show reverse human development outcomes. Moreover, GDP growth never reflects an increased sense of food security or better access to nutrition by the people at the bottom of the income parameter and, most importantly, it never takes note of the vast informal economy of small scale agriculture producers.

In the process, this excludes a vast population from getting any benefits offered by the government. So, while taking a call on identifying the poor in the country, planners must keep in mind that increasing level of economic growth will not automatically deliver desired development results. Till people in the government think beyond the burdensome growth story, there will be a severe difficulty in identifying the poor, which will virtually end up in hiding the extent of poverty in the country.

The grave concern on inflation management, gaps in project execution, leakages in public welfare schemes, increase in the prices of basic food items and lapse in the distribution-marketing system explain the deteriorating situation of poor. Above all, with regular instances of fraud surfacing in recent times, one can hardly believe that the poverty rate in the country has been reduced as claimed by the planning commission.

The writer works for an international development agency and is based in Bangalore
sachisatpathy@yahoo.com