Congress’s concept of minimum income guarantee is intellectually embarrassing and deeply flawed | The Indian Express

Congress’s concept of minimum income guarantee is intellectually embarrassing and deeply flawed | The Indian Express

Written by Surjit S Bhalla |Updated: March 28, 2019 10:17:57 am

The writer is Contributing Editor at The Indian Express, and Consulting Editor at Network 18

Congress’s concept of minimum income guarantee is intellectually embarrassing and deeply flawed

Very likely, and I am speculating, it was because of the opposition of Congress’s economic consultants that there were glaring and obvious contradictions in the Congress’s Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG) income, and the contradiction between survival and poverty line income.

The first fake news element within PAP is in its assertion that prominent economic experts were involved in arriving at the figure of Rs 72,000 a year or Rs 6,000 a month as the minimum income line. (Illustration: CR Sasikumar)

For two and a half days, the media was full of discussion, and interpretation, of the Congress proposal on alleviating poverty (hereafter pap or PAP). In addition, the Congress, and its president, Rahul Gandhi, has not been shy of invoking big names in his advertisement of support for, and planning of, PAP. Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has been prominently mentioned as a major consultant; Economist Thomas Piketty has admitted to having been consulted, though Nobel laureate Angus Deaton has denied as having been involved in any way whatsoever. In addition, leading MIT economist Abhijit Banerjee has admitted that he has been consulted by the Congress. According to a report in Business Standard (January 27): “A committee of party leaders, which included Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram, has calculated the basic living income each family needs to survive as Rs 12,000 per month.”