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‘Need to redefine poverty’

Special Correspondent

For a realistic approach to its reduction

JAIPUR: Noted economist Ashwani Saith has suggested redefining poverty in the country for a more realistic approach to poverty reduction. Defining poverty in terms of food component alone would not be proper as the focus should be on vulnerability of the poor and their access or lack of it to resources. “Lot of distortions exist the way poverty is defined now,” he said.

Delivering the Foundation Day Lecture at the Institute of Development Studies here over the weekend, Prof. Saith, now with the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague, said access to well-being need not always be due to income. Similarly poverty eradication always did not involve spending money. Measuring the poverty line in terms of points as in the case of listing BPL (Below Poverty Line) families would answer some of the weaknesses involved in poverty measurement but the methodology needed further improvement, he said.

Methodology required

“Selecting the BPL families may be a political exercise but there should be at least a methodology in place in the selection,” said Prof. Saith. “The way the poor is defined now is a flawed exercise. It does not pass muster in terms of political coherence though it may be politically convenient,” he noted.

Prof. Saith said there were many categories of poor as poverty more often was a relative term. “There are those who have been always poor along with those who are sometimes poor and never poor. If one remains poor over a period of five years then one is chronically poor. Between 15-30 per cent of the poor are chronically poor. There are about 8 per cent people who are never poor,” he said.

‘China fared better’

“We should focus on the vulnerability caused by poverty though resources are needed for such an approach to the problem,” Prof. Saith observed. Comparatively China had fared better in asset distribution as India’s interventions in land distribution had remained very feeble, he said.

Prof. Saith said the rich had no right to complain about the employment guarantee programme for the poor as the former got roads and other public facilities out of it without paying anything. As the employment guarantee programme did not do full justice to the poor of this country there should be some mechanism allowing the labour creating those assets to control them in future. Prof. Saith criticised micro finances saying they charged 25 per cent interest from the rural poor while the rich got bank loans at much lower rates. There was also a tendency lately on the part of the multinational banking institutions to get into micro financing as the interest rates were very high and the repayment was also much better than others at above 99 per cent.

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