【英语国际】印度重估贫困标准 救济对象可能增加1亿

Alimunisha's home is a 150-square-foot mud floor with a roof of plastic tarp held up by bamboo sticks. The beds are burlap potato sacks. There's no running water, electricity or toilet. She can afford to feed her five children one meal a day on the income her husband earns selling traditional drums.

But according to the Indian government, Ms. Alimunisha, who goes by only one name, isn't living in poverty.

That means her family doesn't qualify for aid aimed at the poorest Indians, including a program that provides free housing and subsidies, which would cut her food costs by two-thirds.

India, one of the world's fastest growing economies, is now embarking on a major reassessment of poverty levels. The review will determine how many struggling people across the world's second-most populous nation, from urban slum dwellers like Ms. Alimunisha to landless farm laborers, will be counted among the ranks of the official poor and get government handouts. At a stroke, tens of millions of people could flood onto the welfare rolls.

Generating a reliable list of poor households has become a top priority for the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which has pledged to spread the benefits of India's rapid growth to the aam aadmi, or common man. The government launched its review of poverty as it drafts legislation to give the poorest Indians a right to subsidized food-grains.

Defining poverty is tough in any country. But deciding who is poor, and how much the government can afford to help them, is especially complex in a nation of 1.2 billion where average annual per capita income is $953 and roughly one in two children is malnourished.

Expanding the definition of poverty without ballooning social spending will be doubly difficult. India already spends $12 billion a year on food subsidies alone. The review could add 100 million people to the welfare rolls and $1.3 billion a year to the nation's food-subsidy bill, a burden on a country that is striving to trim public deficits.

'It would be nice to make a list of all vulnerable groups and say those are the ones who should get support,' says Jean Dreze, a development economist at the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute in Uttar Pradesh state. 'But the question is, where do you draw the line when the costs shoot up?'

India is plowing ahead anyway. The Planning Commission, which advises the central government on economic policy, said in April it is taking steps that would increase the national poverty rate to 37.2% of the population, from 27.5%. That will increase the official tally of the poor by about one-third, bringing it to roughly 408 million.

Years of growth in countries like India and China have lifted the fortunes of tens of millions of people in the past quarter century.

The World Bank, which defines poverty as survival on less than $1.25 per day, says India reduced poverty from 60% of the populace to 42% between 1981 and 2005, but says the country still accounts for one-third of the world's 1.4 billion poor people. In the same period, China reduced poverty from 84% to 16%.

Alimunisha的家是一片150平方英尺的泥地，屋顶是用竹竿撑起来的塑料布。床是用装土豆的麻袋搭的。没有自来水、没电、也没有卫生间。她丈夫的营生是叫卖传统的鼓，以此得来的收入只够每天让五个孩子吃一顿饭。

但根据印度政府的标准，Alimunisha的生活并不算贫穷。

也就是说，她一家人不符合针对最贫穷印度人的救助标准，这类救助包括一个提供免费食宿的项目，如果能得到救助的话，她花在食品上的钱能省下三分之二。

印度是全球发展最快的经济体之一，人口数量位居世界第二。目前印度正对贫穷水平进行大规模重估，确定印度有多少生计艰难的人（从Alimunisha这样的城市贫民窟居民到没有土地的农场劳力）位于官方的贫困线以下，从而可以获得政府救济。可能会有数千万民众突然涌入救济名单。

拿出可靠的贫困家庭名单已经成为印度总理辛格(Manmohan Singh)领导下的政府的头等大事，辛格政府做出了承诺，要让印度普通民众分享到经济快速发展的好处。印度政府正在起草法案，让最贫穷的印度人有权获得救济粮，对贫困水平的评估也是在这样的情况下开展的。

在任何一个国家，定义贫困都非易事。然而印度有12亿人口、人均年收入只有953美元、差不多一半的儿童营养不良，在这样一个国家，要确定哪些人是贫困人口以及政府能以多大的力量帮助他们则更是一道错综复杂的难题。

放宽贫困的定义、同时又不能让社会开支过度膨胀更是难上加难。印度每年仅食品补贴开支就已经高达120亿美元。此次重新评估可能让政府的救济名单新增1亿人，食品补贴开支每年增加13亿美元，对于正极力削减公共赤字的印度来说，这无疑是沉重的负担。

北方邦(Uttar Pradesh)G.B. Pant社会科学研究院(G.B. Pant Social Science Institute)的发展经济学家德热兹(Jean Dreze)说，把所有贫困族群列个单子，说这些人都应当获得救助，那当然好，但问题是，一旦成本飙升，救助的界限在哪里？

不管怎样，印度依然在行动。为中央政府提供经济政策建议的计划委员会(Planning Commission)今年4月说，它正采取措施，将把全国贫困率从27.5%提高到37.2%。这样一来，官方登记的贫困人口将增加三分之一左右，总计达到约4.08亿。

过去二十多年来，印度和中国经历了多年的经济增长，数千万人的财富大大增加了。

世界银行(World Bank)对贫困的定义是，每日生活费用低于1.25美元。世行说，1981至2005年，印度的贫困率从60%下降至42%，但该国贫困人口仍占全球总计14亿贫困人口的三分之一。与此同时，中国的贫困率从84%下降到16%。