PDS and NREGA: The poor get just 13 per cent of the money in their name

According to data just released by the UPA government, 250 million people, or 22 per cent of the Indian population, was absolutely poor in 2011-12, a steep decline from the 38 per cent level recorded in 2004-5. This is great news for India, but given the reaction in the media and among opposition politicians, it is as if disaster had struck. Learned people lamented and argued that the Rs 30 per person per day poverty line, the basis of the above estimates, was set too low, that it was impossible for a person to survive on such low consumption.

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