Poverty measurement: lines, committees and multidimensional poverty

Poverty lines try to turn a lived experience of deprivation into a number that policy can track. In India, the traditional approach estimated the expenditure needed for a minimum standard of living, largely based on calorie norms and the cost of a basket of goods. Households below that expenditure level were counted as poor. The approach made poverty comparable over time, but it also invited argument about whether the line was too low to capture dignity, health, schooling and housing.

Expert committees have repeatedly revised the method. The Tendulkar Committee, whose report was submitted in 2009, moved away from a purely calorie-based line to a broader consumption basket and produced estimates that counted more people as poor than earlier methods. The Rangarajan Committee, reporting in 2014, proposed a higher line and a different basket, and its estimates were higher still. The government did not formally adopt the Rangarajan estimates as the official poverty line, which left a long-running debate about which series to use and why official poverty figures for recent years have been contested.

Alongside expenditure poverty, India now also uses multidimensional poverty measurement. The National Multidimensional Poverty Index, published by NITI Aayog drawing on the National Family Health Survey, counts deprivations across health, education and standard of living, including nutrition, schooling, sanitation, drinking water, housing and assets. A household is counted as multidimensionally poor if it is deprived in a weighted share of indicators. This approach can show progress on schooling or sanitation even when incomes move slowly, and deprivation in one area even when expenditure rises.

The lesson for civil studies is that poverty is a choice of definition before it is a number. Different lines, baskets and dimensions produce different headcounts, and each is useful for a different question. Expenditure lines track purchasing power, multidimensional indices track living conditions, and neither by itself explains why people are poor. That explanation requires looking at land, work, health, education, caste, gender, location and access to credit and markets together.