NEW DELHI: India will be ‘poverty free' by 2020, the country's economic planning commission, by far the most influential advisory body to the government has said, leaving many including government officials aghast on how it would be possible. According to the planning commission, the country would be poverty free by the end of the 13th five-year plan, which ends in 2020. A five year plan is a futuristic document which recommends to the government how and where it should focus public spending every five years. The commission's projections, made to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on finance, which is in no mood to believe the commission. “The committee is at a loss to understand as to how the target for elimination of poverty can be achieved on recomputed higher estimate,” the committee headed by BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, said. According to reports the commission used data based on an earlier study which estimated that 37.5 percent Indians were poor back in 2005-05, which had reduced to 29.8 percent by 2009-10 a dip of 7.4 percent. they estimated that by 2020 with government support, poverty would reduce at an even grater rate. The committee however, accepted the submission and asked the planning commission to toil to ensure that their strict target is met. However this was not before the committee observed that the Planning Commission was not “serious in its approach.” The parliamentary committee has even suggested that the government appoint another expert group to evaluate the performance of the planning commission. Poverty in India is a huge problem for governments, which are struggling to balance the fast economic growth as well as help bring people mostly rural farmers out of poverty. Government has several schemes ensuring work and free grain for those who are living below an economic benchmark called the poverty line.
