Reject Tendulkar Committee report on BPL
The Planning Commission has recently cleared the path to approve the suggestions of the Tendulkar committee it had appointed to estimate the number of people below the poverty line. The National Food Security Act (NFSA) likely to be placed in the Parliament promises food security to people living below the poverty line at a very subsidized rate. The NFSA will estimate the number of poor on the basis of the Tendulkar report and will provide food security to this population.The Tendulkar report has estimated that 37.2% Indians to be below the Poverty Line which translates as 25.7 % in urban India and 41.8% in rural India. The Tendulkar committee has moved away from the traditional Calorific value to Poverty Line Basket (PLB) and has redefined Poverty Line from the earlier Rs.11/14 to Rs.15/19 per person per day for rural/urban expenditure. The PLB has also reduced the calories intake from 2400/2100 rural/urban to 1770 for all. The Tendulkar report have resorted to “Goal Post shifting”. For 40 years we had been using the Calorific values to estimate poverty line, the Tendulkar committee has although rightly moved away from it to include costs such as health, education and clothing and not only food items but it has drastically reduced the calories. Infact the sum of the cost of food items in the Poverty Line Basket is less than Rs.11 which is less than the earlier rural Poverty line.It is interesting to note that two other Expert Groups i.e Saxena Committee and Arjun Sengupta Committee have arrived at different and almost conflicting results in estimation of poverty.
Tendulkar committee estimates the number of poor as 37.2% whereas Saxena Committee estimates the number of poor to be 50.1%. Infact Arjun Sengupta Committee has a startling revelation that the sections of our society termed as “Poor and Vulnerable” constitute 77% of the Indian population who cannot afford to spend Rs20 per person per day. They are in stark contradiction to what has been estimated and proposed by Tendulkar committee. The Poverty line identification by Tendulkar of Rs 15/19 per person per day for rural/urban India is nothing but a “Starvation Line”.The whole exercise by the Planning Commission and the UPA to push for a Food Security program which will not ensure the Right to Food of the poor casts serious doubts on the intention of the GoI to meet the UN’s Millennium Development Goals of mitigating poverty. India ranks 2 digits and 3 digits in various Human Development Indices. Nearly 45% of our children and nearly 75% women suffer from malnutrition. It is worth noting here that the Food bill is inversely proportional to the Health bill. The more we spend on food the less we spend on health. So this is a zero sum situation.Under these circumstances, the Movement for Peace and Justice rejects the Tendulkar report and calls upon the UPA Government to be sensitive to the basic concerns of the poor. We demand the following from the Government of India:1. Reject the recommendations of Tendulkar Committee report. Instead refer the Arjun Sengupta report for estimation of poverty.2. Establish Right to Food on the lines of Right to Education. By accepting Arjun Sengupta’s estimation of poverty we will be gradually moving towards achieving the goal of Right to Food.3. Redefine poverty line on the basis of World Bank’s recommendation of $1.25 for extreme poverty for sub Saharan region. Raise the poverty line to Rs.1,50,000 per household per annum.
4. Conduct a poverty census on the basis of the poverty line advised by WB to identify people living below the poverty line.5. We strongly condemn and reject the reduction of food entitlement from 35kg / family to 25 kg / family.6. We demand the Universalization of food, health, education and employment as suggested by Saxena committee.MPJ pledge to continue the awareness campaign and our protest against the move by the Planning Commission & the GoI to use the recommendations of Tendulkar report until all our demands are met.
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