In , official efforts began to set a clear monetary threshold for measuring poverty using essential daily spending, particularly focusing on food energy intake and basic personal needs over various like and using poverty line norms.
🎯 In this chapter, you will understand:
- How the 1979 Task Force set early calorie requirements for rural and urban areas.
- Why the 1989 Expert Group introduced state-specific adjustments for prices.
- The historic values of monthly spending thresholds from 1973 to 2005.
- The modern shifts introduced by the Tendulkar Committee in 2009.
💡 Why this topic matters: Measuring poverty helps the government identify vulnerable households and deliver support effectively across different states.
🧠 Core Idea: India moved from a simple daily calorie target to broader expense-based basket measurements to track living conditions over time.
Task Force Definition of Poverty Line (1979)
The initial phase in measuring poverty requires setting up a monetary boundary known as the poverty line.
The Task Force on 'Projection of Minimum Needs and Effective Consumption Demand', set up by the Planning Commission in , based its definition on daily energy needs called caloric norms:
- (i) Rural areas: 2400 calories per person each day
- (ii) Urban areas: 2100 calories per person each day
These energy goals came from age, gender, and work recommendations provided by the Nutrition Expert Group (1968), adjusted for overall population structure.
This process established a monetary equivalent of required calorie intake while accounting for essential items like clothes, housing, and travel.
Using records from the 28th Round NSS data, monthly spending thresholds per person were set at:
- (a) Rural: Rs. 49.09 for 2400 calories daily
- (b) Urban: Rs. 56.64 for 2100 calories daily
This uniform national poverty line was applied across all States/UTs, though price differences between states later made it clear that local adjustments were required.
1989 Expert Group: State-Specific Poverty Lines
The Expert Group (1989) identified that prices varied significantly across different parts of the country, making a single figure unfair for everyone.
They separated the central standard by applying regional price measures known as state-specific cost of living indices for village and city populations.
The poverty line was updated using inflation and price indices, which created different limits across states.
Poverty Line Values Based on NSS Data (Table 11.1)
Official records from various NSS surveys illustrate how monthly spending targets rose steadily over several decades due to rising living costs.
⚡ Quick Revision Capsule: Historical Poverty Lines (Table 11.1)
The table below shows how official monthly spending limits per person changed over time:
| Year | Rural (Rs.) | Urban (Rs.) |
|---|---|---|
| 1973-1974 | 49.63 | - |
| 1977-1978 | 56.76 | 56.84 |
| 1983 | 70.33 | 89.50 |
| 1987-1988 | 115.65 | 115.20 |
| 1993-1994 | 162.16 | 205.84 |
| 1999-2000 | 281.35 | 454.11 |
| 2004-2005 | 356.30 | 538.60 |
Source: Planning Commission (1997), PIB (2001, 2007)
Tendulkar Committee Approach (2009)
The Planning Commission selected a new panel under Prof. Suresh Tendulkar in to modernize how poverty was calculated.
The Tendulkar Committee (2009) utilized the NSSO quinquennial survey and introduced a new method called Mixed Reference Period (MRP).
Their Poverty Line Basket (PLB) incorporated a full range of household goods and services, rather than relying mainly on food calories.
The expanded basket included vital health, education, and household expense factors. New price indices were derived from the 61st Round NSS data by evaluating unit-level household values for essential food and non-food goods.
The method is not directly comparable with earlier headcount ratios because the underlying item basket and price adjustments were changed completely.
Poverty Line and Headcount under Tendulkar Committee (Table 11.2)
Below are the updated monthly spending limits along with the proportion of people classified under poverty according to the new system:
| Year | Rural (Rs.) | Urban (Rs.) | Rural (% below poverty) | Urban (% below poverty) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004-05 | 446.68 | 578.80 | 41.8 | 25.7 |
| 2009-10 | 672.80 | 859.60 | 33.8 | 20.9 |
📝 Summary
India's framework for tracking poverty evolved over starting from simple calorie-based figures in to state-level price indexes in , and finally to a broader household consumption basket under the Tendulkar Committee (2009) guidelines.
🚀 Quick Revision Points
Essential facts to review before examinations:
- (i) The 1979 Task Force fixed caloric norms at 2400 kcal for rural areas and 2100 kcal for urban areas.
- (ii) The 1989 Expert Group adjusted limits using regional price indexes to handle local price differences.
- (iii) The 2009 Tendulkar approach introduced the Mixed Reference Period (MRP) and expanded items beyond food energy.
- (iv) Figures from the Tendulkar method cannot be directly matched with older reports from publications like Planning Commission (1997).
- 💡 Exam Tip: Remember that rural areas require higher daily calories (2400) than urban areas (2100) due to higher physical exertion, but urban spending limits in rupees are higher because of elevated living costs.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q1: Why did the 1979 Task Force set different calorie goals for rural and urban regions?
A1: Rural living involves more manual labor, requiring a higher daily energy intake of 2400 calories compared to 2100 calories in urban centers.Q2: What change did the 1989 Expert Group bring to poverty calculations?
A2: They introduced state-specific cost of living indices so that differing prices across individual states were properly calculated.Q3: How did the Tendulkar Committee revise the poverty basket in 2009?
A3: They moved away from pure calorie counting by adopting the Mixed Reference Period (MRP) and including essential non-food items, as detailed in reports like Tendulkar Committee (2009).
