The expert group that in 2009 recommended dropping the calorie norm as the anchor of the poverty line was headed by
- A.D. T. Lakdawala
- B.Suresh Tendulkar
- C.C. Rangarajan
- D.Y. K. Alagh
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Suresh Tendulkar. The Tendulkar expert group reported in 2009, moved away from the calorie anchor, used a mixed reference period for consumption and brought private spending on health and education into the basket, which raised the estimated share of the poor. Option A is wrong because the Lakdawala expert group of 1993 kept the calorie-based line and its contribution was to make the lines state-specific and to update them with price indices for industrial and agricultural workers. Option C is wrong because the Rangarajan expert group reported in 2014, after Tendulkar, and went back to separate rural and urban baskets while raising the line. Option D is wrong because the task force under Y. K. Alagh in 1979 is the one that fixed the calorie norm in the first place, so it is the opposite of the answer sought.
Read the full article: Poverty and Unemployment in India: Concepts and PYQs
Practice Questions
View allWhich of the following organisations conducts the sample surveys for calculating the poverty line in India?
- A.Ministry of Finance
- B.RBI
- C.CSO
- D.NSSO
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The National Sample Survey Office carries out the large household surveys of consumption expenditure from which the number of people below the poverty line is worked out, and it now functions within the National Statistical Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
Read the full explanation →What is the term used for people who regularly move in and out of the poverty line?
- A.Occasionally poor
- B.Usually Poor
- C.Chronic poor
- D.Churning poor
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In the standard classification the churning poor are those whose consumption crosses the poverty line and falls back below it again and again, the typical cases being small and marginal farmers and casual labourers whose earnings depend on the season.
Read the full explanation →A situation in which more workers are engaged in a job than are actually required, so that withdrawing some of them does not reduce output, is called
- A.Frictional unemployment
- B.Disguised unemployment
- C.Cyclical unemployment
- D.Structural unemployment
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Here the extra workers appear to be employed but their marginal contribution to output is close to zero, which is why the condition is called disguised or hidden; the classic Indian example is a family farm on which several members work a plot that two could manage.
Read the full explanation →Under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, how many days of wage employment are guaranteed to a rural household in a financial year?
- A.50
- B.75
- C.100
- D.150
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The Act, passed in 2005, gives every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work a legal right to one hundred days of wage employment in a financial year, and if work is not provided within the prescribed period the applicant becomes entitled to an unemployment allowance.
Read the full explanation →The calorie norm originally used to draw the rural poverty line in India was
- A.2,100 calories per person per day
- B.2,400 calories per person per day
- C.1,800 calories per person per day
- D.3,000 calories per person per day
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The task force of 1979 fixed the rural line at the consumption expenditure needed to obtain 2,400 calories a day, on the ground that rural work involves more physical labour.
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