While India boasts a class of very rich, 69 billionaires, hundreds of millions of people still face a lack of food, clean water and proper housing. Around 37 per cent of India’s 1.2 billion population are currently deemed to live below the poverty line and are being given subsidised food and cooking fuel through state-owned stores.
India’s economic planning body has said any villager earning 50 cents a day is not poor and should not qualify for a government ration card.
Those with a daily income of 25 rupees (50 cents) in villages and 32 rupees (65 cents) in cities should be ineligible for subsidised food and other supplies, the Planning Commission told India’s Supreme Court. India’s proposed poverty line cut-off is far below the World Bank’s figure of $1.25 a day. Anyone earning above these levels would have enough funds for food, education and health, the commission said.
“There is no way one person can feed and house himself on 32 rupees in a city for a day. This figure has no meaning for the common man,” Anupama Datta, deputy head of the National Slum Dwellers Federation
“A kilogramme of rice costs 40 rupees which would last a family just one day,” said New Delhi housemaid Ambeka Muthuswami, adding that three bananas cost about 10 rupees.
Indian social activist Aruna Roy told the DNA newspaper that the level reflected “the government’s lack of empathy for the poor” and a “perspective completely divorced from reality.”
Biraj Patnaik, adviser to an official commission on the right to food, said “when it comes to helping the poor, the government wants as few people as possible to get even the minimum benefits” to reduce its expenditure.
India’s solution to the number of poor: lower the poverty line
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