Analysing poverty levels in India by comparing various surveys

A recent paper has estimated that poverty reduction in India slowed down significantly after 2011-12. While poverty levels of 37% in 2004-05 fell to 22% by 2011-12, ithas since fallen only by 18% in 2022-23, the paper finds based on its own calculations. The paper, titled ‘Poverty Decline in India after 201 1-12: Bigger Picture Evidence’, authored by Himanshu of Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Peter Lanjouw and Philipp Schirmer of the Vrije University in Amsterdam, noted that India hasn't had an official poverty estimate since 2011-12. In the absence of an official estimate, a number of unofficial and often contradictory estimates have been made, of which this one is the latest. Three methodologies

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The paper notes that the various contradictory estimates can essentially be clubbed into three broad buckets based on their methodology. The most common approach, it noted, has been to use alternative socio-economic surveys of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), since there are significant comparability issues between the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) of 2022-23 and 2011-12. There are no intervening surveys, either. The HCES for 2017-18 was scrapped by the government, citing “methodological issues”.In the NSSO's 71st round, which covered the January-June 2014 period, the government introduced a consumption expenditure measure that was derived from a single question in the survey called the Usual Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure (UMPCE). This UMPCE was used for all subsequent rounds of the NSSO surveys as well as in the Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS). However, as the authors correctly note in their paper, this measure can’t be compared to earlier estimates of consumption because it is based on a single question “with no clear definition of what it comprises”. According to this method, poverty estimates range between 26-30% for 2019-20.