Poverty hidden in numbers

Sachin Kumar Jain Bhopal

It seems that the definition of poverty itself is responsible
for keeping the poor, poor. And, hungry. For the elimination of chronic
hunger, poverty identification is a big challenge. At the all-India
level, poverty line is based on Uniform Recall Period Consumption (URP)
which is the consumption data collected from a 30-day recall period
covering all items. According to sources, the Uniform Recall Period
Consumption (URP-Consumption) distribution data showed a poverty ratio
of 28.3 per cent in the rural areas, 25.7 per cent in the urban areas
and 27.5 per cent for the country as a whole in 2004-05.

According to the Planning Commission's latest estimate, poverty in
India is reducing. However, there are serious lacunae in this process
of arriving at this estimate. Locally available items from forest or
agriculture consumed by farmers or tribals are also valued at
prevailing prices. These are added to the expenditure on non-food items
to give the total monthly per capita expenditure. At the same time, the
cost of items and services such as shelter, health or education are
counted at the lowest price without considering the present state of
inflation. All this adds up to give a picture that is not accurate.

At the all-India level, the poverty line represents the expenditure
level of Rs 356.30 in rural areas and Rs 538.60 in urban area per
person per month. This is basically a starvation line rather than a
poverty line, and virtually impossible for any person to survive at
this level of expenditure.

The Planning Commission estimates that in Madhya Pradesh, a family
spending Rs 327.78 per person per month in a rural settlement will be
considered poor. In an urban settlement, the expenditure level is Rs
570.15 per person per month. In other words, it means, a person
spending anything more then Rs 9 every day in a village or Rs 19 in any
kind of urban area, will not be considered as poor and will be out of
poverty elimination programmes.

In Madhya Pradesh, it is estimated that a population of 249.68 lakh
(38.3 per cent) will go to bed hungry, as they simply do not have
access to resources to overcome this situation. Once communities
like Sahariya, a primitive tribal group, get trapped in the cycle of
chronic hunger, they begin to lose their capacities to contribute to
society either economically or socially. At the same time, reviews of
existing schemes like Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana or National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme show such communities as poor contributors
and unwilling workers.

The roots lie in a system which neither allows them rights over
natural resources nor enough income to overcome hunger. There have been
no land reforms in Madhya Pradesh. This, in spite of the MP government
releasing the Bhopal Declaration at the beginning of this millennium,
which commits state's priorities of land distribution to dalits.

To add insult to injury, the state government has reduced the common
grazing land available to the community while it has been non-committal
on ownership rights of the land inhabited by them for generations. This
leaves them with very little choice or avenues to challenge their
situation of deprivation. The dalits and tribals are ultimately left at
the mercy of more powerful castes in the region sans any government
protective measures to retain rights on the land.