26/04/2016
Lakdawala Formula
- Till as recently as 2011, the official poverty lines were based entirely on the recommendations of the Lakdawala Committee of 1993.
- This poverty line was set such that anyone above them would be able to afford 2400 and 2100 calories worth of consumption in rural and urban areas respectively in addition to clothing and shelter.
- These calorie consumptions were derived from YK Alagh committee only.
- According to the Lakdawala Committee, a poor is one who cannot meet these average energy requirements. However, Lakdawala formula was different in the following respects in comparison to the previous models:
- In the earlier estimates, both health and education were excluded because they were expected to be provided by the states.
- This committee defined poverty line on the basis of household per capita consumption expenditure. The committee used CPI-IL (Consumer Price Index for Industrial Laborers) and CPI- AL (Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Laborers) for estimation of the poverty line.
- The method of calculating poverty included first estimating the per capita household expenditure at which the average energy norm is met, and then, with that expenditure as the poverty line, defining as poor as all persons who live in households with per capita expenditures below the estimated value.
- The fallout of the Lakdawala formula was that number of people below the poverty line got almost double. The number of people below the poverty line was 16 per cent of the population in 1993-94. Under the Lakdawala calculation, it became 36.3 per cent