- BPL poverty cap placed at 46%, By K. Balchand, May 19, 2011, The Hindu: “The Below the Poverty Line (BPL) census, approved by the Union Cabinet on Thursday, will be an exercise in identifying households that will fit the bill within the poverty cap of 46 per cent of the rural population of India. The identification of the 46 per cent poverty cap, estimated by the Planning Commission, will be done through a set of automatic exclusion and automatic inclusion criteria, and the remaining households will be classified through seven assigned deprivation indicators. At the same time, State-wise caps based on the S.D. Tendulkar methodology have been allowed for better targeting of those living below the poverty line. The 46 per cent cap is lower than the 50 per cent suggested by the N.C. Saxena Committee. Officials have remained silent on the displeasure of the Supreme Court on placing a cap on the BPL list…”
- India ‘redefines’ poverty for new survey, May 19, 2011, BBC News: “India’s cabinet has approved a proposal for a survey to identify people living below the poverty line, which also redefines what constitutes poverty. It will classify the rural poor into ‘destitutes, manual scavengers and primitive tribal groups’. Urban poor will be defined as those in vulnerable shelters, low-paid jobs and homes headed by women or children. The survey, to be conducted alongside a caste census later this year, will help identify those who need state aid. There are various estimates on the exact number of poor in India…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty