BackPoverty quintiles
On focusing on the bottom quintile of India’s population, rather than get distracted with poverty line debates
Premium(Ramesh Pathania/Mint)
There has been no shortage of heated debates of late on how to measure poverty in India. The rather technical issue of how to define a poverty line has become a matter of controversy. In order to avoid such problems, a convenient thumb rule that is used by many economists is to divide the population into five groups based on their income—or five quintiles, each with a fifth of the population. The bottom fifth are then considered poor.
It is interesting to note that the latest poverty numbers released by the Planning Commission this week show that only the bottom fifth of the population is now under the poverty line. So it is now perhaps a good idea to focus on the bottom quintile, rather than get distracted with debates on the poverty line. Of course, this bottom fifth includes the very poorest 10 million families that are covered by Antyodaya schemes. These 50 million need special attention.
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