Rethink poverty — and policy | The Indian Express

Rethink poverty — and policy | The Indian Express

Written by Surjit S Bhalla, Karan Bhasin |Updated: June 29, 2019 12:32:56 am

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

Bhasin is a New Delhi based policy researcher

Rethink poverty — and policy

Given the estimated poverty decline in India between 2011-12 and 2016-17, time has come to change our economic policies — concentrate on what causes growth, not what causes poverty to decline

Poverty is no longer about food, so free up the food producers rather than keeping them as prisoners of policy (and politicians and bureaucrats). (Illustration: Suvajit Dey)

Today is National Statistics Day and there is a reasonable chance that the NSSO Consumer Expenditure Survey report for agricultural year (July-June) 2017-18 will be released over the next couple of weeks. Based on our analysis of existing trends in consumer expenditure and consumer prices, we predict that this will (should) unleash seismic changes in the way Indians (including the Union government) think about absolute poverty and its alleviation, macro-growth policies and micro policies, especially those on agriculture.