The computation of poverty in terms of Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure (MPCE) based on the Mixed Reference Period was recommended by the
- (a)Lakdawala Committee
- (b)Tendulkar Committee
- (c)Dandekar Committee
- (d)Alagh Committee
Correct — B, Tendulkar Committee. The expert group under Suresh Tendulkar reported in November 2009 and changed how poverty is counted in India in two connected ways. It abandoned the practice of anchoring the poverty line to a calorie norm and moved to a broader consumption basket covering food along with education, health, clothing, footwear, fuel, light and transport. And it recomputed the underlying consumption figure, monthly per capita consumption expenditure, using the mixed reference period rather than the uniform thirty-day recall the earlier estimates rested on, since the mixed period asks about infrequently purchased items over a full year and captures them better. That combination of monthly per capita consumption expenditure on a mixed reference period is exactly what the stem describes.
- (a)Lakdawala Committee — The Lakdawala expert group, whose report came in 1993, kept the calorie-based line and worked on the uniform reference period. Its contribution was to give separate state-level lines and to update them with price indices, not to change the recall period.
- (c)Dandekar Committee — V. M. Dandekar, with Nilakantha Rath, produced the influential 1971 study that fixed a poverty line on a daily calorie intake. That work is two methodological generations earlier and predates the mixed reference period entirely.
- (d)Alagh Committee — The Y. K. Alagh task force of 1979 gave India its first official poverty line, and it was purely a calorie norm — 2,400 kilocalories a day in rural areas and 2,100 in urban. Precisely the calorie anchor that Tendulkar later dropped.
India's official poverty line has been redrawn by four expert bodies, and the sequence is worth holding in order. Dandekar and Rath in 1971 used a daily calorie intake to define the line. The Alagh task force of 1979 made it official, at 2,400 kilocalories a day rural and 2,100 urban. Lakdawala, reporting in 1993, kept the calorie basis but gave state-specific lines updated by price indices. Tendulkar, reporting in November 2009, broke with the calorie anchor, widened the basket to include health and education, and used consumption measured on the mixed reference period. Rangarajan, reporting in June 2014, was constituted to review Tendulkar and returned to a norm combining calories, protein and fat with a normative allowance for non-food items.
Two things separate this item from a straight name-recall question. The first is the reference period. In the National Sample Survey a uniform reference period asks about all consumption over the last thirty days, while the mixed reference period asks about low-frequency items such as clothing, footwear, education and durables over the last three hundred and sixty-five days and the rest over thirty. The longer window records occasional purchases that a thirty-day recall would miss, so it raises measured consumption and lowers measured poverty. The second is the ordering: Rangarajan was set up to review Tendulkar, so Tendulkar must come first, and Alagh's calorie norm must come before both. Note also that the Tendulkar line has not been officially superseded — the Rangarajan report was never formally adopted, so Tendulkar's methodology remains the last accepted official basis for India's poverty estimates.
- The Tendulkar Committee reported in November 2009 and moved poverty estimation to monthly per capita consumption expenditure on the mixed reference period.
- It dropped the calorie anchor and widened the consumption basket to include health and education spending.
- The mixed reference period records low-frequency items over 365 days and the rest over 30 days, unlike the uniform 30-day recall.
- The sequence of committees is Dandekar and Rath in 1971, Alagh in 1979, Lakdawala reporting in 1993, Tendulkar in November 2009 and Rangarajan in June 2014.
- The Alagh task force set the original calorie norms of 2,400 kilocalories a day for rural areas and 2,100 for urban areas.
Rangarajan was constituted to review Tendulkar, which fixes the order of the last two without any date being memorised.
- Attaching the mixed reference period to Lakdawala, who worked on the uniform period.
- Confusing Dandekar and Rath's 1971 study with the Alagh task force that made a calorie line official in 1979.
- Assuming Rangarajan's line replaced Tendulkar's officially; the report was not formally adopted.
As a name-the-committee item, as a chronological ordering item, or as a statements item on what a particular committee's methodology did and did not include.
In a given year in India, official poverty lines are higher in some States than in others because
- (a) poverty rates vary from State to State
- (b) price levels vary from State to State
- (c) Gross State Product varies from State to State
- (d) quality of public distribution varies from State to State
Answer(b) price levels vary from State to State
The same line looked at from the price side. Because the poverty line is the money needed to buy a fixed consumption basket, it must be higher where that basket costs more — which is why the choice of consumption measure in this item matters so much.
Which of the following statements with regard to the Report of Tendulkar Committee (2009) on poverty estimates is/are correct? 1. The Committee had used an all-India urban poverty line basket as a reference to derive both rural and urban poverty levels. 2. The Committee had anchored the poverty line to the official food calorie norms. Select the correct answer using the code given below.
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(a) 1 only
The same report examined a year later, and the key there confirms what this item depends on: Tendulkar cut the poverty line loose from the calorie norms and worked instead from an all-India urban consumption basket.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The first official poverty line in India, based purely on calorie norms of 2,400 kilocalories a day in rural areas and 2,100 in urban areas, was recommended by
- (a)The Lakdawala Committee
- (b)The Alagh Task Force
- (c)The Tendulkar Committee
- (d)The Rangarajan Committee
Answer(b) The Alagh Task Force — its 1979 report fixed India's first official calorie-based poverty line.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In the National Sample Survey, the mixed reference period differs from the uniform reference period chiefly in that it
- (a)surveys only rural households
- (b)records low-frequency purchases over 365 days instead of 30
- (c)uses income rather than consumption
- (d)excludes food expenditure altogether
Answer(b) records low-frequency purchases over 365 days instead of 30 — items such as clothing, footwear, education and durables are captured over a year, while other consumption is still recalled over thirty days.