Which of the following methods has/have been used to estimate poverty in India?
1. Head Count Ratio
2. Calorie intake
3. Household Consumption Expenditure
4. Per Capita Income
Select the correct answe

Question

Which of the following methods has/have been used to estimate poverty in India?
1. Head Count Ratio
2. Calorie intake
3. Household Consumption Expenditure
4. Per Capita Income
Select the correct answer from the codes given below.
Codes:

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, 1, 2 and 3. India's official poverty estimates have rested on household consumption expenditure (measured by NSSO surveys), benchmarked to a calorie-intake norm (e.g., 2400 kcal rural / 2100 kcal urban under the Alagh and Lakdawala frameworks), with poverty then expressed as the Head Count Ratio — the proportion of persons whose consumption falls below the poverty line. So methods 1, 2 and 3 have all been used. Per Capita Income (4) is a national-income/growth aggregate, not a tool for identifying who is poor, so it is excluded — giving (b).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Wrong — it drops the Head Count Ratio (1), which is the standard summary measure used to report poverty in India.  (c) Wrong — consumption expenditure is central, but calorie norms (2) and the Head Count Ratio (1) have also been used, so it is not '3 only'.  (d) Wrong — it wrongly includes Per Capita Income (4). Poverty in India is estimated from consumption, not income; per-capita income is a growth measure, not a poverty-line method.

Concept: In India poverty is measured on the consumption side, not the income side. Expert groups (Alagh 1979, Lakdawala 1993, Tendulkar 2009, Rangarajan 2014) defined a poverty line as the per-capita monthly consumption expenditure needed to meet a minimum basket, originally anchored to calorie requirements. The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) collects the household consumption expenditure data, and poverty is then summarised as the Head Count Ratio (share of population below the line).

State PCS 2020 Q119 — Economy PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2020 Q119 — Economy PYQ with Answer