Context

• The publication of the National Sample Survey’s Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (2024), after more than a decade, has enabled new insights into poverty measurement in India.
• According to its report, Poverty and Equity Brief: INDIA (2025), extreme poverty — defined as living on less than $2.15 a day, fell from 16.2 percent in 2011-12 to 2.3 percent in 2022-23.
• Such a finding, if accurate, would represent a remarkable achievement, pointing to the near elimination of extreme poverty in the country.
• Yet, alternative perspectives based on food consumption raise doubts about whether these figures capture the full reality of deprivation.

Rethinking Poverty: The ‘Thali’ Approach

• Traditional poverty measurement in India has relied on a calorie-based standard, wherein income thresholds are tied to the cost of food providing a minimum calorific intake.
• While this physiological approach has merit, it risks narrowing the concept of food security to energy alone, excluding nourishment, dietary balance, and cultural satisfaction.
• An alternative method proposes the thali meal, comprising rice, dal, vegetables, roti, curd, and salad, as a holistic consumption unit.
• Balanced in nutrients, the thali provides a more realistic benchmark for basic food adequacy in South Asia.
• Applying this framework, researchers estimated affordability based on household food expenditure reported in the 2024 survey.
• With the cost of a home-cooked thali at ₹30 (as per CRISIL estimates), they found that half of rural households and one-fifth of urban households could not afford two thalis per day.
• Even when Public Distribution System (PDS) subsidies were factored in, the share of households unable to afford this minimal food standard remained significant: 40% in rural areas and 10% in urban areas.
• This contrast highlights that food deprivation in India persists at levels far higher than those implied by the World Bank’s poverty line. 

The Public Distribution System: Successes and Limitations

• The PDS, central to India’s food security strategy, plays a vital role in offsetting food deprivation.
• However, an analysis of subsidy distribution reveals serious inefficiencies and inequities. In rural India, subsidies are not strongly progressive: individuals in the 90th–95th income fractile receive almost as much subsidy as those in the bottom 5%, despite their far higher purchasing power.
• Urban India shows a more progressive distribution, yet around 80% of urban households receive subsidised cereals, including many who can already afford adequate consumption.
• Moreover, data show that cereal consumption has plateaued across income groups. Both the poorest and the richest consume roughly similar amounts of rice and wheat, suggesting that staple cereal demand has been met.
• This indicates that further expansion of cereal distribution under the PDS, such as the January 2024 policy extending free grain to 800 million people, may no longer reflect actual nutritional needs. Instead, it diverts public resources from other urgent areas.

Pulses as a Nutritional Priority

• Where significant disparities remain is in the consumption of pulses, a key source of protein in Indian diets.
• The poorest households consume only half as much per capita as the richest.
• Unlike cereals, pulses are expensive and often unaffordable for low-income families, despite their importance for balanced nutrition.
• Expanding the PDS to cover pulses would address this gap directly, promoting not only food sufficiency but also nutritional equity.
• A restructuring of the PDS is therefore warranted.
• By trimming excessive cereal entitlements for households already consuming adequate amounts and redirecting resources to supply pulses, the government could achieve two goals simultaneously: reduce fiscal and logistical burdens while raising the nutritional intake of the poorest.
• Such a policy would also bring the food consumption of the most deprived closer to that of the richest, a globally significant equalisation.

Policy Implications

• The juxtaposition of World Bank poverty statistics with thali-based measures of food affordability underlines a crucial truth: income-based poverty lines may obscure deeper forms of deprivation.
• While extreme poverty may be diminishing, widespread food insecurity and nutritional deprivation remain pressing challenges.
• The PDS, though effective in equalising cereal consumption, is no longer sufficient in its current form.
• A restructured PDS, leaner in cereals but expanded in pulses — could be transformative.
• It would target subsidies toward those most in need, reduce wasteful expenditures, and promote dietary balance.
• Importantly, such reforms would align poverty alleviation not merely with survival, but with dignity, nutrition, and human well-being.

Conclusion

• The debate on India’s poverty must move beyond aggregate income thresholds and embrace multidimensional indicators like the thali.
• Only then can policy fully address the realities of deprivation and chart a path toward equitable, sustainable food security for all.