The State Of India’s Poor Must Be Acknowledged

Context: If the abject poverty and economy is to be repaired, the number of the poor has to be meticulously counted.

 

Rising number of poor and underlying hesitation to address the reality

• Slide-in poverty numbers even before pandemic: As demonstrated through the following facts -
  • Fall in monthly per capita consumption expenditure of 2017-18 for the first time since 1972-73, which the Government withheld citing concerns with the quality of data collected.
  • Fall of in Global Hunger Index to ‘serious hunger’ category.
  • National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) had worrying markers of increased malnutrition, infant mortality and maternal health.
  • Bangladesh bettering India’s average income statistics must also be a reason for Indians to introspect.
• Questionable policy priorities: Precarious situation after demonetisation in 2016 was rendered calamitous with coronavirus pandemic and shrinking of the economy.
  • In 2019, the global Multidimensional Poverty Index reported that India lifted 271 million citizens out of poverty between 2006 and 2016.
  • Since then, the International Monetary Fund, Hunger Watch, SWAN etc., show a decline.
• Impact of the pandemic:
  • World Bank data estimated that ‘the number of poor in India, on the basis of an income of $2 per day or less in purchasing power parity, has more than doubled to 134 million from 60 million in just a year.
  • In 2020, India contributed 57.3% of the growth of the global poor. India contributed to 59.3% of the global middle class that slid into poverty.
• Poverty line debate:
  • In 2011, the Suresh Tendulkar Committee report at a ‘line’ of Rs 816 per capita per month for rural India and Rs 1,000 per capita per month for urban India, calculated poor at 25.7% of the population.
  • Anger over 2011 conclusions led to the setting up of Rangarajan Committee 2014, which estimated poor at 29.6%, based on persons spending below Rs 47/day in cities and Rs 32 in villages.

Importance of knowing accurate numbers

• Helps to gain public opinion:g. Guiding debate on minimum wages, Spain has accorded security to its gig workers by giving delivery boys the status of workers.
• Facilitates honest policy evaluation:g. Whether a policy such as bank write-offs of loans amounting to Rs 1.53-lakh crore last year, which helped corporates overwhelmingly, beneficial to the vast majority.
• As public debates will be guided by real concerns of the majority, it will create a climate that demands accountability from public representatives.
• Understanding paradox: As the stock market rose even during a time when the economy is in turmoil and people are taking the brunt of the pandemic.
  • If billionaire lists are evaluated in detail and reported upon, the country cannot shy away from counting its poor.

Conclusion

• The Government must girdle up and unflinchingly quantify the slide from ‘fastest-growing economy to the country with the largest rise in number of poor people.
• Urgent solutions are needed within, and the starting point of that would be only when we know how many are poor.

Did you know?

• The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector in 2004, had concluded that 836 million Indians still remained marginalised.
• The commission’s recommendations on social security resulted in the enactment of the Unorganised Sector Workers Social Security Act.