The Reporters’ Collective’s review of parliamentary records reveals that the Union government has faced questions about the poverty line at least six times over the past decade, each time deferring or avoiding a definitive answer. The report states despite recommendations from a 2016 task force led by economist Arvind Panagariya, the government has yet to establish a new official poverty line.
The Narendra Modi government has publicly claimed significant strides in reducing poverty over the past decade. Still, many economists argue that the post-COVID economic recovery has been K-shaped, benefitting the wealthy while leaving the poor further behind. A critical tool for validating such claims would be an official poverty line—an average monthly expenditure threshold used to determine who is considered poor.
The Parliamentary Committee on Government Assurances pursued these issues diligently, but the government successfully dropped five out of six assurances related to this matter. The task force’s report, submitted in 2016, was intended to address poverty measurement and suggest a new poverty line, yet the government has skirted implementing its recommendations, citing the need for further expert review.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government argued against expanding the number of beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act, relying on outdated and unverified claims from Niti Aayog that poverty had decreased. This argument is undermined by the fact that per capita income can rise even as the poor become poorer—a situation many economists assert has occurred in recent years.
The government’s inaction is compounded by the continued use of 2011 Census data to estimate the number of poor requiring subsidised food, despite the census being due for an update post-2021. The Panagariya task force had explicitly stated that an official poverty line is crucial for focusing public policy discourse on agreed-upon metrics, yet the government has not acted on this recommendation.
Despite criticism from parliamentary committees and repeated assurances that the task force report was “under consideration,” the government moved in 2021 to drop ten assurances related to poverty measurement, attributing it to pending decisions. The Niti Aayog’s multidimensional poverty index, which measures various aspects of poverty without providing a clear poverty threshold, has been used as a substitute, but it fails to provide a straightforward measure of poverty.
As a result, the Modi government’s claims of poverty reduction lack a solid foundation, and India’s poor remain unaccounted for under an official metric. The ongoing absence of a clear poverty line highlights a significant gap between government claims and the reality faced by the country’s impoverished population.
Read the report here.
