Has poverty level fallen below 5%?

Estimate suggests the poverty level could be around 3%, closer to Niti Aayog CEO’s claim

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THE Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Monday said it has been receiving a number of complaints against fraudulent trading platforms falsely claiming as SEBI-registered foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) or offering trading opportunities through FPI accounts. In other words, just about 4.45 crore Indians are below poverty, going by the latest Household Consumption Expenditure Survey 2022-23.

fractile, or the bottom 5% of the population and households under the 5-10% fractile -- the two groups vulnerable to extreme poverty. The bottom 5% spends about 1,441 per person a month on average. One can assume that the 2.5th percentile spends ₹1,441. The next 5% of the population fork out ₹1,864 going by the latest data. The difference between both works out to ₹423. And going by the earlier Tendulkar extrapolation, rural poverty works out to 1,534 for the bottom 5%, which is ₹93 higher than the average monthly consumption expenditure of ₹1,441.