People's Democracy

Home Minister must Study his

Govt�s Reports Carefully

The CPI(M) has issued the following rejoinder on March 28, to the remarks of Mr P Chidambaram, which appeared in The Hindu dated  March 28, 2010.

The home minister has termed the fact of 77 per cent of our population living below Rs 20/- per day as a "myth" propagated by the Left.

He has done so by misquoting the Left as saying that 77 per cent of the population has a per capita income of Rs 20 per day. What the Left has been citing is the figure provided by the National Commission for
Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, which was set up by the previous UPA government in 2004. The report on conditions of work and livelihoods in the unorganised sector submitted to the prime minister by the NCEUS in August 2007, states in the first page of its first chapter:

"At the end of 2004-05, about 836 million or 77 per cent of the population were living below Rs 20 per day and constituted most of India's informal economy." This report is available in the public domain.

(http://nceus.gov.in/)

The home minister would do well to study the reports of his own government more carefully in order to better his understanding of the prevailing socio-economic conditions of people in the country.