Revision summary
India long used NSS consumption poverty lines: Lakdawala, Tendulkar, then Rangarajan. NITI’s MPI with NFHS tracks health, education, and living-standard deprivations. Scheme targeting often uses SECC, NFSA, and State lists, not one rupee line. Rural tools: MGNREGA, PDS/NFSA, NRLM, PMAY-G, PMGSY, PM-KISAN, and skills. Last-mile leaks and missing durable jobs still leave pockets of rural poverty.
Model answer
Introduction
India has measured poverty mainly as the share of people below a consumption-expenditure line, later adding multidimensional counts of health, education, and living standards. Rural poverty is then attacked through work, food, credit, housing, and farm-income rails, not through the poverty line alone.
Body
How poverty is measured
- Planning Commission estimates used National Sample Survey consumption: a calorie-anchored line (Alagh, Lakdawala) and then Tendulkar (2009), which moved toward a broader consumption basket including health and education.
- The Rangarajan Committee (2014) proposed a higher line using a new basket; the Union later stopped official Planning Commission poverty ratios after NITI Aayog replaced the Commission.
- NITI Aayog’s National Multidimensional Poverty Index (with UNDP/OPHI method: health, education, standard of living) now tracks deprivation beyond rupees, using NFHS data.
- World Bank international lines ($2.15 / $3.65, PPP) are used for cross-country comparison; they are not the domestic official series.
- Identification for schemes often uses Socio-Economic Caste Census deprivation, NFSA coverage, and State BPL lists rather than a single all-India rupee line.
Steps against rural poverty
- Wage floor: MGNREGA (2005) offers a legal days-of-work guarantee and a local public-works wage.
- Food and nutrition: NFSA/PDS, ICDS, mid-day meal, and POSHAN cut calorie and child-stunting poverty.
- Livelihoods and credit: DAY-NRLM SHGs, MUDRA, Kisan Credit Card, and PM-KISAN try to raise farm and non-farm cash.
- Assets and infrastructure: PMAY-Gramin, PMGSY roads, rural electrification, and toilets (SBM) attack living-standard deprivations that MPI counts.
- Human capital: Samagra Shiksha, health sub-centres, and skill (DDU-GKY) aim at a lasting exit rather than a seasonal dole.
- Gaps remain: leaky last mile, landless households without a durable non-farm job, and rainfed distress that a poverty line does not itself cure.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD M[NSS consumption lines Tendulkar Rangarajan] --> P[Poverty headcount] MPI[NITI MPI NFHS] --> P P --> W[MGNREGA NFSA NRLM] P --> A[PMAY-G PMGSY PM-KISAN] W --> R[Rural poverty reduction] A[A] --> R[R]
Conclusion
India measures poverty as consumption poverty (Tendulkar/Rangarajan lineage) and, increasingly, as multidimensional deprivation. Rural programmes—MGNREGA, NFSA, NRLM, housing, roads, and farm transfers—are the operational answer. Measurement without last-mile delivery, or delivery without a job, leaves rural poverty only partly overcome.
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Next question in the 2019 paper (Q7). View answer →
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Is there still one official all-India rupee poverty line?
The old Planning Commission series stopped. NITI emphasises MPI; international dollar lines are for comparison.
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Does MGNREGA by itself end rural poverty?
It is a floor against distress. Lasting exit still needs farm viability, skills, and non-farm work.
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