Opinion Planning for Failure

Under review was the Planning Commission’s apparent claim that only those individuals spending less than 20 rupees a day were to be considered poor. It sounds shocking,and seems well worth a 20-minute segment,which it got. Jean Dreze,the economist and member of the National Advisory Council made one of his too-few appearance on television to elegantly lay out the case against the 20-rupee cutoff; it was measured,perfectly modulated. He had props — a little box containing what you can buy for that much money,such as a potato,a tiny bit of rice,a matchbox and a pencil; he was judiciously fair,pointing out that the “20 rupees” report was untrue,since that was for the value of the rupee in 2004,and the actual amount in today’s prices was Rs 30; and he ended with sardonic humour,pointing out that the only way you could live on that money was to be an MP and eat at the Parliament canteen,where a meal costs Rs 2. (He held up a menu.) Good stuff.

The Planning Commission’s statistician,Pranab Sen,was called on to reply; and he pointed out that the Rs 20 line was only to identify the number of the poor — actually targeting them with government

programmes would require something else. The point was,you gathered,that our consumption surveys underestimate how much people spend; the Rs 20 line is thus a statistical artefact,and people above that line would wind up being considered poor enough for social support when the time came to design and implement state schemes. It was best,he said,not to conflate the two: that would be — long pause as he searched for a polite,collegial,word — “problematic”.

Possibly,said Dreze,as long as the statistical benchmark was never used an eligibility criterion,and there wasn’t any sleight of hand later when the time came to design programmes,and we didn’t use it as an exclusion criterion.

Then the anchor asked Mani Shankar Aiyar: does it look good if the NAC and the Planning Commission disagree? And he said: “I made it very clear to the young lady who rang me to ask me to come on your programme that I wasn’t interested in defending the Congress party…. don’t make the mistake of thinking the NAC is a government body.” That took any possible heat out of the discussion; he went on to guide it squarely back towards what questions of exclusion and inclusion from schemes meant for the poor,and argued that local communities should decide that,not bureaucrats in Delhi. It was almost as if Mani Shankar Aiyar didn’t want to fight. Worrying.

I came to the discussion confused,and left enlightened. Nice,no?

Except it was quite ruined for me by the fact that the anchor didn’t quite have a similar experience; she kept on asking “are we making the poor invisible?” which was,I suppose,the tagline thrown around when the discussion had been planned. The discussion she was moderating worked; its participants had taken their audience way beyond that silly formulation; but the anchor seemed totally unprepared for that to happen.

Even after Pranab Sen pointed out with well-concealed impatience that under the — apparently imaginary —Rs 20 line,37 per cent of India were poor,she seemed to think that “are we making the poor invisible?” was a reasonable question to ask,and asked it a third time. How on earth saying “a third of India is still poor” the same as making them invisible? I left the discussion dying to ask the anchor a few tough questions,not the experts.

No wonder most discussions fail; not even the people who arrange for them expect them to succeed.

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