the government’s decision to appoint a committee to reconsider the way
poverty numbers are estimated, indicating a deep divide between the
political masters and the technocrats at institution charged with laying
down development agenda for the country.
On Thursday, Minister for Planning Ashwini Kumar announced a committee
under C Rangarajan, chairman of prime minister’s economic advisory
council, to review the widely criticised poverty estimates released
earlier. The conference was not attended by any of the commission
members.
Most of the Planning Commission has distanced itself from the review
even as there has not been any fervent opposition to setting up the
review committee.
"We are not opposed to a review," said a member, but there is a feeling
that the issue was blown out of proportion and any new panel might not
serve a very productive purpose."
Commission members say that they were not kept in the loop. The idea was
mooted by the minister merely a day after the commission had announced
the poverty numbers and denied any intension of revising it.
The dissonance within the commission is evident by the sequence of
events. Ashwini Kumar’s approached PM Manmohan Singh directly over the
issue, sidelining Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek S
Ahluwalia.
"The decision to go for a different committee happened without
consulting us. We were told later and there were some questions
regarding the use of another committee," said another plan panel member.
"Most of the people in the new committee have seen merit in the
Tendulkar report. The commission, at best, wants to stay indifferent to
it and wait for the observations of the review whenever they come," the
member added.
The committee members include PMEAC chairman C Rangarajan; Mahendra Dev,
director of Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research; K
Sundaram, former professor with Delhi School of Economics; Mahesh Vyas,
CEO ,CMIE; and KL Dutta ex- adviser with the planning commission.
While Rangarajan has said that the new committee will look beyond a
consumption expenditure based method for calculating poverty, he had in
2010 praised the work of the Tendulkar committee.