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‘Measuring poverty difficult’

Against the backdrop of recent controversy over Planning Commission’s poverty line, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said that gauging poverty is a ‘difficult task’ as there are diverse views on the definition.

‘Measuring poverty is a difficult task. There are diverse views about what constitutes poverty. But whatever definition we may adopt, it cannot be denied that the pace of reduction of poverty has increased after 2004,’ Singh said.

His comments, on the occasion of 67th Independence Day celebrations, came weeks after a major controversy over the way to define poverty.
The controversy erupted after Planning Commission said persons spending over Rs 33.33 a day in cities and Rs 27.20 in villages are not poor. Based on this, Commission concluded that the poverty ratio in the country declined to 21.9 per cent in 2011-12 from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05.
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