The Congress in its manifesto for 2009 general elections promised to enact Right to Food law to provide 25 kg of rice or wheat at Rs.3 per kg every month to families living below poverty line (BPL). This has been delayed as the planning commission has asked the rural development ministry to carry out another survey of BPL families. The previous survey taken according to the Tendulkar committee’s methodology of calculating poverty based on a broad-based consumption basket that includes education and health has shown a higher estimate of poor which is around 36 percent. Existing methodology of calculating poverty is based on the calorific intake of individuals which shows the estimate of poor as 27.5 percent. This was calculated by the planning commission for 2005-06.

This fresh survey could take months and the criteria for identifying the poor is not yet finalized. This survey will is vital as it forms as the basis for the allocation required for the Right to Food Act. It is decided to include expenditure other than food such as medicines, clothes and education in the new criteria for determining BPL families but again the entire criteria is not yet finalized. Till the entire process is completed the poor will have to wait for their promise of Right to Food.

Sovereign economic planning in India is done through Five-Year Plans, which lay out the agenda, budget, and the manner of the implementations of economic plans, for five-year periods. The First Five-Year Plan (1951-56) came into being from December 8, 1951. Currently, we are in between the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007-12).

The focus of the various Five-Year Plans have been varied – self-sufficiency in food (First Plan), industrial growth (Second Plan), self-reliance in agriculture &industrial development (Third Plan), employment & education to underprivileged (Fourth Plan), inflation control & health (Fifth Plan), infrastructure & agriculture (Sixth Plan), employment, health & family welfare (Seventh Plan), liberalization (Eighth Plan), agricultural labourers, rural income, & small farmers (Ninth Plan), literacy & economic growth through private sector involvement (Tenth Plan), and 10% GDP growth & 70 million new employment opportunities (Eleventh Plan).

However, these plans have met mixed success. After the encouraging success of First Plan, unfavourable monsoon and international price rise due to Suez crisis hit the Second Plan badly. Further Plans mostly missed their targets, due to the lack of political will, corruption, and external factors. Unfortunately, even after several decades of independence, the Tenth Plan (2002-07) had serious gaps, which failed to address the problems facing agriculture, people below the poverty line, education, balanced growth, and so on. Therefore, the hope rests on the performance of the Eleventh Plan to make up for the loss of its predecessors!

Poverty in India is a cause for concern even after 62 years of Independence. Poverty indicates a condition in which a person fails to maintain a living standard adequate for his physical and mental efficiency. India has the world’s largest number of poor people. Of its nearly 1 billion inhabitants, an estimated 260.3 million are below the poverty line, of which 193.2 million are in the rural areas and 67.1 million are in urban areas. More than 75% of poor people reside in villages. Poverty level is not uniform across India. The poverty level is below 10 percent in states like Delhi, Goa, and Punjab etc whereas it is below 50 percent in Bihar (43) and Orissa (47). It is between 30-40 percent in Northeastern states of Assam, Tripura, and Mehgalaya and in Southern states of Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. Some of the reasons of poverty in India are unequal distribution of income, high population growth, illiteracy, large families, caste system, poor employment opportunities in rural areas and migration of rural population to cities, which further worsens the condition.

Since majority of rural area depends on agriculture (which is highly dependant on rain patterns) inadequate rain fall and improper irrigation facilities can cause low or no production of crops which leads to severe poverty among rural population. Rural poverty is majorly due to unemployment and low productivity. Urban poverty is due to migration of people from rural areas to cities in search of jobs, slow job growth and increasing population. Though the Government has taken steps and initiated number of programs to bring down the poverty level, it has not reached to all sectors. It’s imperative that private organizations should also pitch in to help the Government to eradicate poverty levels in India.