Lok Sabha Question No. 3853 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2019-12-11
Subject: Tendulkar Committee on Estimation of Poverty
Ministry: PLANNING
Asked by: Kaushalendra Kumar, Rajiv Ranjan (Lalan) Singh

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF PLANNING

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION No. 3853 TO BE ANSWERED ON 11.12.2019

## Tendulkar Committee on Estimation of Poverty

## †3853. SHRI KAUSHALENDRA KUMAR: SHRI RAJIV RANJAN SINGH ALIAS LALAN SINGH:

Will the Minister of PLANNING be pleased to state:

- (a) whether a committee has been constituted under the Chairmanship of Dr. Suresh D. Tendulkar to fix the criteria of poverty line in the country;
- (b) if so, whether the committee has submitted its report and recommendations to the Government;
- (c) if  so,  the  main  recommendations  of  the  committee  including  the  State-wise criteria to fix the limit of poverty line;
- (d) whether  the  committee  has  included  the  figures  of  both  Urban  and  Rural population or done evaluation of the figures of rural population only; and
- (e) if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) OF THE MINISTRY OF PLANNING AND MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) OF THE MINISTRY OF STATISTICS & PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION

## (RAO INDERJIT SINGH)

(a)  to  (e)  The  erstwhile  Planning  Commission  constituted  an  Expert  Group  under  the Chairmanship  of  Prof.  Suresh  D.  Tendulkar  on  2nd  December,  2005  to  review  the methodology  for  estimation  of  poverty.  The  Expert  Group  submitted  its  report  on  8th December 2009. Some of the major recommendations of the committee are as follows:

1.  The  Expert  Group  has  acknowledged  the  multi-dimensional  nature  of  poverty  and recommended  the  estimates  of  poverty  continue  to  be  based  on  private  household consumer expenditure collected by National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO).
2.  The  Group has recommended moving away from anchoring the poverty lines to the calorie intake norm.
3. In line with the decision of the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), it has been  recommended  to  adopt  the  Mixed  Reference  Period  (MRP)  based  estimates  of consumption expenditure as the basis for future poverty lines.
4.  The  Expert  Group  has  also  recommended  MRP  equivalent  of  urban  Poverty  Line Basket (PLB) corresponding to 25.7% urban headcount ratio as the new reference PLB. The rural poverty line should be recomputed to reflect money value in rural areas of the same poverty line basket (PLB) that is recommended as the new reference PLB for urban areas.

The  Tendulkar  Committee  recommended  Monthly  Per  Capita  Consumption Expenditure (MPCE) of Rs. 447 for rural areas and Rs 579 for urban areas as the poverty line  for  the  year  2004-05,  which  was  accepted  by  the  erstwhile  Planning  commission. The State-wise poverty line and poverty ratio in urban and rural areas for the year 200405  are  given  at Annexure-I .  The  erstwhile  Planning  Commission  had  been  using Tendulkar Committee methodology to estimate the poverty line and the poverty ratio at national and state level. For the year 2011-12, the erstwhile Planning Commission, using the poverty line recommended by the Tendulkar Committee for 2004-05 and updating it to 2011-12  had  estimated  the poverty lines as monthly  per  capita  consumption expenditure (MPCE) of Rs. 816 in rural areas and Rs. 1000 in urban areas. The number of persons living below poverty line in India has been estimated as 27 crore (21.9%) in 2011-12. These poverty lines vary from state to state because of price differentials. The State wise poverty line and number of persons living below poverty line in 2011-12 for rural and urban areas are given at Annexure-II.

Annexure-I

## Poverty Lines and poverty Headcount Ratio for People living below poverty line for 2004-05 (Tendulkar Methodology)

| S.No.   | State             | Poverty Line (Rs)   | Poverty Line (Rs)   | Poverty Headcount Ratio (%)   | Poverty Headcount Ratio (%)   | Poverty Headcount Ratio (%)   |
|---------|-------------------|---------------------|---------------------|-------------------------------|-------------------------------|-------------------------------|
| S.No.   | State             | Rural               | Urban               | Rural                         | Urban                         | Total                         |
| 1       | Andhra Pradesh    | 433.43              | 563.16              | 32.30                         | 23.40                         | 29.90                         |
| 2       | Arunachal Pradesh | 547.14              | 618.45              | 33.60                         | 23.50                         | 31.10                         |
| 3       | Assam             | 478.00              | 600.03              | 36.40                         | 21.80                         | 34.40                         |
| 4       | Bihar             | 433.43              | 526.18              | 55.70                         | 43.70                         | 54.40                         |
| 5       | Chhattisgarh      | 398.92              | 513.70              | 55.10                         | 28.40                         | 49.40                         |
| 6       | Delhi             | 541.39              | 642.47              | 15.60                         | 12.90                         | 13.10                         |
| 7       | Goa               | 608.76              | 671.15              | 28.10                         | 22.20                         | 25.00                         |
| 8       | Gujarat           | 501.58              | 659.18              | 39.10                         | 20.10                         | 31.80                         |
| 9       | Haryana           | 529.42              | 626.41              | 24.80                         | 22.40                         | 24.10                         |
| 10      | Himachal Pradesh  | 520.40              | 605.74              | 25.00                         | 4.60                          | 22.90                         |
| 11      | Jammu& Kashmir    | 522.30              | 602.89              | 14.10                         | 10.40                         | 13.20                         |
| 12      | Jharkhand         | 404.79              | 531.35              | 51.60                         | 23.80                         | 45.30                         |
| 13      | Karnataka         | 417.84              | 588.06              | 37.50                         | 25.90                         | 33.40                         |
| 14      | Kerala            | 537.31              | 584.70              | 20.20                         | 18.40                         | 19.70                         |
| 15      | Madhya Pradesh    | 408.41              | 532.26              | 53.60                         | 35.10                         | 48.60                         |
| 16      | Maharashtra       | 484.89              | 631.85              | 47.90                         | 25.60                         | 38.10                         |
| 17      | Manipur           | 578.11              | 641.13              | 39.30                         | 34.50                         | 38.00                         |
| 18      | Meghalaya         | 503.32              | 745.73              | 14.00                         | 24.70                         | 16.10                         |
| 19      | Mizoram           | 639.27              | 699.75              | 23.00                         | 7.90                          | 15.30                         |
| 20      | Nagaland          | 687.30              | 782.93              | 10.00                         | 4.30                          | 9.00                          |
| 21      | Odisha            | 407.78              | 497.31              | 60.80                         | 37.60                         | 57.20                         |
| 22      | Puducherry        | 385.45              | 506.17              | 22.90                         | 9.90                          | 14.10                         |
| 23      | Punjab            | 543.51              | 642.51              | 22.10                         | 18.70                         | 20.90                         |
| 24      | Rajasthan         | 478.00              | 568.15              | 35.80                         | 29.70                         | 34.40                         |
| 25      | Sikkim            | 531.50              | 741.68              | 31.80                         | 2.90                          | 31.10                         |
| 26      | Tamil Nadu        | 441.69              | 559.77              | 37.50                         | 19.70                         | 28.90                         |
| 27      | Tripura           | 450.49              | 555.79              | 44.50                         | 22.50                         | 40.60                         |
| 28      | Uttar Pradesh     | 435.14              | 532.12              | 42.70                         | 34.10                         | 40.90                         |
| 29      | Uttarakhand       | 486.24              | 602.39              | 35.10                         | 26.20                         | 32.70                         |
| 30      | West Bengal       | 445.38              | 572.51              | 38.20                         | 24.40                         | 34.30                         |
|         | All India         | 446.68              | 578.80              | 41.80                         | 25.70                         | 37.20                         |

## Poverty Lines and number of persons living below poverty line for 2011-12 (Tendulkar Methodology)

| S.No.   | State             | Poverty Line (Rs)   | Poverty Line (Rs)   | Number of persons (Lakhs)   | Number of persons (Lakhs)   | Number of persons (Lakhs)   |
|---------|-------------------|---------------------|---------------------|-----------------------------|-----------------------------|-----------------------------|
| S.No.   | State             | Rural               | Urban               | Rural                       | Urban                       | Total                       |
| 1       | Andhra Pradesh    | 860                 | 1009                | 61.8                        | 17.0                        | 78.8                        |
| 2       | Arunachal Pradesh | 930                 | 1060                | 4.2                         | 0.7                         | 4.9                         |
| 3       | Assam             | 828                 | 1008                | 92.1                        | 9.2                         | 101.3                       |
| 4       | Bihar             | 778                 | 923                 | 320.4                       | 37.8                        | 358.2                       |
| 5       | Chhattisgarh      | 738                 | 849                 | 88.9                        | 15.2                        | 104.1                       |
| 6       | Delhi             | 1145                | 1134                | 0.5                         | 16.5                        | 17.0                        |
| 7       | Goa               | 1090                | 1134                | 0.4                         | 0.4                         | 0.8                         |
| 8       | Gujarat           | 932                 | 1152                | 75.4                        | 26.9                        | 102.2                       |
| 9       | Haryana           | 1015                | 1169                | 19.4                        | 9.4                         | 28.8                        |
| 10      | Himachal Pradesh  | 913                 | 1064                | 5.3                         | 0.3                         | 5.6                         |
| 11      | Jammu& Kashmir    | 891                 | 988                 | 10.7                        | 2.5                         | 13.3                        |
| 12      | Jharkhand         | 748                 | 974                 | 104.1                       | 20.2                        | 124.3                       |
| 13      | Karnataka         | 902                 | 1089                | 92.8                        | 37.0                        | 129.8                       |
| 14      | Kerala            | 1018                | 987                 | 15.5                        | 8.5                         | 23.9                        |
| 15      | Madhya Pradesh    | 771                 | 897                 | 191.0                       | 43.1                        | 234.1                       |
| 16      | Maharashtra       | 967                 | 1126                | 150.6                       | 47.4                        | 197.9                       |
| 17      | Manipur           | 1118                | 1170                | 7.4                         | 2.8                         | 10.2                        |
| 18      | Meghalaya         | 888                 | 1154                | 3.0                         | 0.6                         | 3.6                         |
| 19      | Mizoram           | 1066                | 1155                | 1.9                         | 0.4                         | 2.3                         |
| 20      | Nagaland          | 1270                | 1302                | 2.8                         | 1.0                         | 3.8                         |
| 21      | Odisha            | 695                 | 861                 | 126.1                       | 12.4                        | 138.5                       |
| 22      | Puducherry        | 1301                | 1309                | 0.7                         | 0.6                         | 1.2                         |
| 23      | Punjab            | 1054                | 1155                | 13.4                        | 9.8                         | 23.2                        |
| 24      | Rajasthan         | 905                 | 1002                | 84.2                        | 18.7                        | 102.9                       |
| 25      | Sikkim            | 930                 | 1226                | 0.4                         | 0.1                         | 0.5                         |
| 26      | Tamil Nadu        | 880                 | 937                 | 59.2                        | 23.4                        | 82.6                        |
| 27      | Tripura           | 798                 | 920                 | 4.5                         | 0.8                         | 5.2                         |
| 28      | Uttarakhand       | 880                 | 1082                | 8.2                         | 3.4                         | 11.6                        |
| 29      | Uttar Pradesh     | 768                 | 941                 | 479.4                       | 118.8                       | 598.2                       |
| 30      | West Bengal       | 783                 | 981                 | 141.1                       | 43.8                        | 185.0                       |
|         | All India         | 816                 | 1000                | 2166.6                      | 531.2                       | 2697.8                      |