The report was commissioned following widespread criticism that the number of poor people in the country was grossly underestimated by the government by choosing an unrealistic poverty line for such estimates.
The panel was headed by former RBI governor C Rangarajan who also was the chairman of the prime minister's economic advisory council in the UPA government.
According to the panel, 363 million people, or 29.5% of India's 1.2 billion population lived in poverty in 2011-12.
The Rangarajan panel considers people living on less than Rs. 32 a day in rural areas and Rs. 47 a day in urban areas as poor. But the official estimate, which is based on recommendations made by late economist Suresh Tendulkar, says that people living on less than Rs. 27 a day rural areas and Rs. 33 a day in urban areas as poor.
These figures were adopted by the UPA government during its first term and they have never been affected by the general public and several experts. The official estimates put the poverty ratio in 2011-12 at 21.9%, which is around 8 percentage points lower than the estimates of Rangarajan.
The new estimates were submitted to the BJP-led government last week and it remains to be seen whether these would be adopted as new official estimates on poverty.
Though the new estimates push up the poverty numbers but one thing is clear that the UPA government has indeed succeeded in reducing poverty during its regime. According to Rangarajan, the number of poor declined from 454.6 million in 2009-10 to 363 million in 2011-12 and the poverty ratio came down from 38.2% to 29.5% in the same period.
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