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The revised benchmark by the World Bank is the average of the national poverty lines of the worlds’ 15 poorest countries. The ADB’s benchmark is Asia-specific based on surveys from 16 Asian countries. When these benchmarks are used for estimating poverty levels in India, the situation becomes grave and uncomfortable. By using the first poverty line, the estimated number of poor in India during 2004-05 was 456 million or 41.6% of the total population.
According to the second poverty line, the number of poor in India was 622 million, which is 54.8% of the population. Evidently, these estimates are significantly above the official estimates of 27.5% indicated by the Planning Commission. Among the states, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, MP, Orissa indicate that around 40% of the population is below the poverty line.
A deeper probe into the poverty statistics measured by the World Bank, the ADB and the Planning Commission reflects poor achievements on inclusive growth despite attaining a growth momentum of as high as 8-10% by the country over the last few years. In the past quarter century, the poverty rate has slowly declined by somewhat less than one percentage point a year. But the number of poor have remained stubbornly large. Moreover, the decline in poverty was faster during the ’80s than during the ’90s and in recent years. Clearly, India has not experienced the spectacular declines in poverty, expected in an emerging economy with high growth.
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