32 Rs (0.5 dollars) a day : Not sufficient enough to survive

32 Rupees (0.5 dollars) a day per person, that’s India’s poverty line benchmark for Urban areas. Yes, you heard it right, that’s the value which is used by the govt. of India to determine and decide who is poor in India and who is not. The benchmark reduces even further to 28 Rupees a day per person for the people living in rural areas. These are the figures and benchmarks released by the planning commission of India, which consists of highly educated scholars and experts, after considerable deliberations and discussions. But even despite the sound professional dexterity and knowledge of the members of planning commission of India, these poverty line benchmarks don’t look plausible in reality.



The poverty line benchmarks released by the planning commission of India for urban and rural areas seem to be long drawn away from the existing reality on grounds. While these nonsensical and irrational benchmarks don’t mean anything to poor people who are constantly suffering being deprived of the basic necessities of life, the appalling ignorance of the existing realities by the govt. adds to the travesties and sufferings of the poor. These figures are plain numbers, even going to an extent of mocking their penurious state of conditions. The govt. might pat its back for reducing poverty to 21.46% of the population in 2012-13 from 37.47% in 2004-05 but the real picture is completely opposite of what is being portrayed and shown. Constant depreciation of rupee and high inflation have led to the decline of the purchasing power of rupee in the domestic market. Purchasing power of any currency tells us about how much more money does a consumer need to spend to buy a particular product in the market as compared to the purchase of the same product in the previous years. With considerable decline in the purchasing power of rupee in the last 20 years, people are forced to shed out more money to purchase products of basic needs like food grains, water, electricity. The planning commission of India should have raised poverty line benchmark considering these factors to provide a proper reflection of the effects of inflation but that didn’t happen.


Also, 28 or 32 Rs aren’t even enough to purchase food for a person, so what about the health, education and other basic needs. Planning commission should also consider providing these necessary basic services to people while calculating poverty line benchmarks. India's poverty line benchmark is around 0.5 dollars which is 2/3 rd less than the international poverty line benchmark of 1.5 dollars a day per person. Hence, it is necessary and incumbent upon the govt. and planning commission to reconsider their process and method used in calculating these benchmarks to help poor get the benefits of being below the poverty line. The concept of giving benefits to the people lying below the poverty line came into picture to help the extremely backward and poor section of the society. Right now, with India’s absurd poverty line benchmarks, many needy poor people are missing out on these benefits, thereby making it difficult for them to survive. We hope that govt. wakes up from its slumber and some sanity prevails.