'Realistic approach to poverty reduction needed': Expert

Jaipur, Dec 9 (UNI) Noted economist Ashwani Saith has stressed the need for redefining proverty in a more 'realisitc way' in the country to reduce poverty.

''Defining poverty in terms of food component alone would not be proper as the focus should be on vulnerability of the poor and their access or lack of it to resources. Lot of distortions exist the way poverty is defined now,'' said Prof Saith, now attached with the Institute of Social Studies at the Hague.

Delivering the Foundation Day Lecture at the Institute of Development Studies here, he said access to well being need not always be dependent on income.

Similarly, proverty eradication did not always involve spending money. Measuring the poverty line in terms of points as in the case of listing BPL (below poverty line), families would answer some of the weakness involved in poverty measurement, but the methodology needed further improvement, he argued.

UNI