Pre-Independence: National Planning Committee (1936)

The National Planning Committee in 1936 under Nehru has made an

economic review and recognised that “there was lack of food, of clothing, of HOUSING

and of every other essential requirement of human existence”. Against this

assessment, the Committee declared that the development policy objective should be

to “ensure an adequate standard of living for the masses, in other words, to get rid of

the appalling poverty of the people”. Towards this end, the Committee defined goals

for the TOTAL POPULATION in terms of nutrition (involving a balanced DIET of 2400 to

2800 calories per adult worker), clothing (30 yards per capita per annum) and housing

(100 sq. ft per capita) (Ravi, 2013).

Post –Independence

The poverty line which divides the poor from the non-poor is got by putting a

price on the minimum required consumption levels of food, clothing, shelter, fuel and

health care, etc. There have been VARIOUS attempts to define poverty line in Indian

context. The Expert Group recommended that the poverty line approach anchored in a

calorie norm and associated with a fixed consumption basket (as recommended by the

1979 Task Force) might be continued. However, the Expert Group further

recommended that the state – specific poverty lines be worked out. This was done in

two steps.

1. To work out State-specific poverty line for the base year 1973–74 by taking

the standardized commodity basket corresponding to the poverty line at the

national level and valuing it at the prices prevailing in each state in the base

year.

2. Updating the poverty line to reflect current prices in a given year by applying

state-specific consumer price indices.