Now Diggy, Gogoi slam Plan panel
With a huge controversy raging around poverty reduction estimates by the Planning Commission, outspoken AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh on Saturday joined Union minister Kapil Sibal in questioning the criteria for fixing poverty line.
Claiming the present criteria of estimating poverty in the country “too abstract and can’t be same” for all areas, Mr Singh felt that malnourishment in members of family should be the basis.
“I have always failed to understand the Planning Commission criteria for fixing poverty line. It is too abstract as it can’t be same for all areas,” Mr Singh said on the microblogging site Twitter.
In another tweet, the AICC general secretary made a strong pitch for linking poverty with malnutrition and anaemia. “First indicator of poverty is malnourishment and anaemia in the family which is easily measurable. Can’t we have that as a criteria?”, he tweeted.
His remarks came a day after Mr Sibal challenged the method used by the Plan panel to calculate poverty saying a family of five cannot live on `5,000 a month.
“If the Planning Commission said those who live above `5,000 a month are not at poverty line, obviously there is something wrong with the definition of poverty in this country. How can anybody live at `5,000?” he had said in Kolkata.
The Plan panel released the latest poverty estimates earlier this week for the country showing that the percentage of people below poverty line declined sharply to 21.9 in the financial year 2011-12 from 37.2 in 2004-05. It had said that for a family of five, the BPL cap in terms of expenditure would amount to `4,080 per month in rural areas and `5,000 per month in urban areas.
In Guwahati, Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday also said that he doesn’t agree to the poverty reduction estimates of the Planning Commission.
Mr Gogoi, who cancelled his visit to South Africa following the law and order problem of the state, told reporters, “I have always been opposing the criteria of the Planning Commission for fixing up the poverty line.”
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