Poverty On The Decline: Montek Singh

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, on Saturday, claimed that poverty is decreasing at a rapid pace compared to 2004.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the launch of the Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellows program at Andhra Pradesh Rural Development Academy in Hyderabad, Ahluwalia said that the poverty line was never fixed by the Planning Commission.

"When the United Progressive Alliance came to power in 2004, we felt that there were many agencies who were reviewing poverty. Therefore, the government constituted the Tendulkar Committee to study the poverty line," he said.

Condemning the criticism over the methodology adopted to measure poverty, Ahluwalia said that in the pre-UPA period, the decline in the poverty ratio per year was 0.74%, but that after 2004, it has improved to 1.5%.

He, however, clarified that the poverty line must not be linked to other welfare schemes.

For instance, free education under the Right To Education Act or Food Security are not linked to the poverty line, he said.

Ahluwalia said that the government has never claimed that poverty has been eliminated - it just said that it was on a decline at a rapid place, he said.

He added that the Planning Commission would soon set up a technical committee comprising experts to look into the whole issue.

He said that based on the recommendations of the proposed committee, poverty would be measured using a new methodology, from the 12th Five Year Plan onwards. (INN)