What's in a Number?

The Planning Commission (PC) recently said that a family which spends more than 32 rupees per day cannot be said to be below the poverty line. There has been a huge furore after that. The Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia was forced to clarify his remarks today. Unfortunately I do not think he has done a good job. He says the intention is not to understate poverty.

There is one thing which has to be realized. Let us take an example in the film Peepli Live. The government officials supply a pump but do not allot the funds to install it, nor do they get that done. The definition raises that danger. A government employee might very well tell a genuine beneficiary tomorrow that he would not get any benefits as technically he is not below the poverty line. We have been told that people above this limit will also be covered under government schemes. This begs the question - what was the intention behind giving this number in the first place? If this point has not been clarified the "clarification" given today does not hold much water.

The argument in fact seems self defeating. Mr. Ahluwalia says that this is the poverty line. That also does not make sense. Are we trying to artificially reduce our poverty figures and move up in international rankings? Does the government want to artificially reduce poverty and claim victory against it when it is hard pressed for some positive news amidst the pandemonium in the country today? I am not more learned than the members of the Planning Commission or the National Advisory Council (NAC), but common sense would suggest that to solve a problem you have to first identify it. To remove poverty we have to identify the factors and symptoms properly before recommending solutions. If this first step itself is skipped, it would seem as if we were trying to wish away poverty. This is dangerous in a country such as ours.

Moving on, I am left wondering as to why the government is not imposing ESMA in Hyderabad. The city has been suffering for about three weeks now. The government has not resolved the issue till now. If it is unable to do that it should at least try to get things back to normalcy. There might be multiple reasons for this. The same party is in power as at the centre. Further the Congress has not been the epitome of tolerance as suggested by the Ramdev and Anna Hazare episodes. It probably also anticipates a further deterioration in law and order. However this kind of logic was given to the Supreme Court once. The court then had asked the state government to quit if it could not maintain law and order as this was its duty. Only time will tell how things will develop now onwards.