-PTI
Observing that poverty, deprivation and destitution are Observing that poverty, deprivation and destitution are a reality in India, Ramesh has said the controversy over the Planning Commission pegging the poverty line at Rs 28.65 daily per capita consumption for cities and Rs 22.42 in rural areas started as it did not concentrate on the automatic exclusion of the beneficiaries. The Minister said that India has been a pioneer in poverty measurement and pointed out that the methodologies for determining poor in the country had started 50 years ago when Pitambar Pant was the head of the perspective planning division in 1962 and these methodologies had been "refined" over the years. "By the methodology we have adopted last 50 years, the rate of decline poverty in the 2004 and 2005 have been twice in the previous decades," Ramesh has said. As per the Commission’s estimates, poverty ratio has declined to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10, from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05. But the ratio has been worked out based on a controversial per capita daily consumption of Rs 28.65 in cities and Rs 22.42 in rural areas. He has blamed the media for treating "the serious issue of poverty measurement" in a "trivialised" manner and said that the rate of decline in poverty in the year 2004 and 2005 had been twice than the previous decades. Ramesh also blamed the states for inflating poverty numbers. "In our political economy, the states have vested interest to inflate poverty numbers. Because, they get more money (from the Centre)," he has said.