Poverty has increased in the Hill State, Planning Commission report claims
From CK Nayak
Hyderabad: In a startling disclosure, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Dr Montek Singh Alhuwalia said that the estimate of poverty in the Northeastern region including Meghalaya cannot be taken in its face value since the sample base taken for such critical task is very low.
In reply to a question of The Shillong Times here, the Deputy Chairman said that in case of small states like Meghalaya the sample taken for the poverty estimate was very low. “You cannot draw your conclusion based on such low sample base,” he said.
He was asked why the rate of poverty is increasing in the North East and remains at the highest level in the country despite the Centre laying so much focus on the remote and backward region.
As per the report, the monthly per capita income of a person in Meghalaya is only Rs 686.90 in rural areas and Rs 989.80 in urban areas as in 2009-10.
More than four lakh persons in the hill state are living below the poverty line, the estimate released by the Planning Commission had said.
Dr Alhuwalia admitted that many of the Central development schemes have not been properly implemented in the NE region.
The Planning Commission study had said that level of poverty in Northeastern states including Meghalaya has increased even though the same has declined in the rest of the country. What is more alarming is that poverty level among the rural tribal population inhabiting the North-East is as high as 47.4 per cent.
The Planning Commission said poverty in India declined 7.3 percentage points to 29.8 per cent of the population over five years in 2009-10. Poverty in rural areas declined at a faster pace than in urban cities between 2004-05 and 2009-10, according to the report.
The total number of poor in the country has been estimated at 34.47 crore in 2009-10 as against 40.72 crore in 2004-05.
Sharp decline in poverty was witnessed in Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttarakhand.
“In Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland, poverty in 2009-10 has increased,” the report said.
India’s poverty estimates are used to determine public access to welfare benefits. Anyone living below the so-called poverty line is entitled to subsidized food and cooking fuel distributed through state-owned stores.
The criteria for measuring poverty levels vary from state to state in India but are now generally based on household spending on food and education.
In rural areas, Scheduled Tribes exhibit the highest level of poverty (47.4%), followed by Scheduled Castes (42.3%) and Other Backward Castes (31.9%) against 33.8% for all classes, the report said.