The Planning Commission, supposedly under pressure from Congress President and UPA Chair person Sonia Gandhi and her supporters on the issue, abandoned its earlier definition, virtually dumped its own report on poverty, and came up with a radically new approach to defining the beneficiaries of the government's poverty alleviation programmes, based on caste.
The signal is now clear that Sonia Gandhi is not only back in the public eye, but is clearly back in action and making her position crystal clear on key issues close to her heart. Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Monday scrambled to undo the huge embarrassment caused by his controversial new definition of the poverty line, submitted in an affidavit to the Supreme Court earlier. Matters had flared up after the Plan panel recently filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court, stating that any person earning more than Rs 26 a day in rural areas (Rs 32 in urban areas) would not be eligible for the various anti-poverty schemes run by the Centre.
Not just the Opposition, but even ruling Congress party members had lambasted the Commission. Several members of the National Advisory Council, which includes many representatives handpicked by Sonia Gandhi, had also come out publicly with strong criticism of the Commission's definition.
NAC member N. C. Saxena had said, "On Rs 32 a day, you know only dogs and animals can live." Fellow NAC member Aruna Roy, in an open letter to Ahluwalia and other Commission members to live on Rs 26/32 per day "till such time that you are able to explain to the public in simple words the basis of the statement that this amount is normatively 'adequate'. If it cannot be explained then the affidavit should be withdrawn or else you should resign."
The Commission had reached the numbers on the basis of a revised poverty estimation exercise undertaken by the Suresh Tendulkar Committee, which submitted its report to the commission in 2009.
But in a somersault, Ahluwalia said on Monday: "It needs to be emphasised that the Tendulkar poverty line is not meant to be an acceptable level of living for the aam aadmi. It is actually the standard of living of those at the poverty line in 1973-74."
This article is posted by pressbrief.in
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