Mint Explainer: How India counts its poor

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₹672.8 in rural areas and ₹859.6 in urban areas and for 2011-12 at ₹816 and ₹1,000, respectively. The Rangarajan committee’s method revised this to ₹972 in rural areas and ₹1,407 in urban centres for 2011-12. Comparing consumption expenditure-based poverty statistics with multidimensional poverty estimates is not straightforward due to their distinct data sources and methodologies.

The former relies on monthly per capita consumer expenditure data from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), while the latter uses data from the National Family Health Surveys, which focus on social and socio-economic indicators. The social and socio-economic indicators reflect to some extent the economic conditions of households and are seen as a more comprehensive measure of poverty than the one based on consumer expenditure. Further, the NSSO’s quinquennial surveys and the NFHS were conducted in different years.

Both methods of estimation point to a decline in poverty but the levels estimated vary. For instance, using the method employed by the Rangarajan committee, the poverty ratio for 2009-10 was estimated at 38.2% and for 2011-12 at 29.5%. The Tendulkar methodology estimated the poverty ratio at 29.8% and 21.9% for the same years.

For 2004-05, the poverty ratio using the Tendulkar methodology was 37.2%. But the Niti Aayog’s estimates of poverty using the multidimensional poverty index for the following year were much higher at 55.34%. The government’s think tank estimates poverty fell below 25% only in 2015-16.