印度新的贫穷定义遭到抨击

Despite India’s spectacular economic growth, millions of people are still poor. The Congress-led government has ambitious plans to cut poverty by spending billions of dollars on employment, health care and education programs. It proposes to pass a law to give cheap food grains to the poor. It wants to replace subsidized fuel and fertilizer with cash transfers.

尽管印度有傲人的经济增长，数以百万计的印度人仍然穷困。国会领导的政府制定了雄心勃勃的计划，通过花费几十亿美元在就业，医疗保健和教育项目上来减少贫困人口。政府提议通过一项法律给予穷人廉价粮食谷类。政府还希望用现金转帐来取代补贴汽油和肥料。

But activists argue that the government is trying to reduce its welfare burden by reducing the number of those who will qualify for state benefits. Among the critics is Biraj Patnaik, adviser to an official commission on the right to food.

但是活动人士认为，政府试图通过降低符合接受邦福利的人数，来减少其福利负担。批评人士之一派特奈克(Biraj Patnaik)是一个有关食物权利的官方委员会顾问。

"What they want to do is to exclude 70 percent of the people of this country from any benefit that anti-poverty programs are giving, and this will then subsequently lead to a decline in subsidies… But this is eliminating the poor by deceit, by default and not by improving their lives," said Patnaik.

派特奈克说：“他们想要把印度70%的民众排除在任何福利之外，这些福利是反贫穷项目所提供的。这种做法接着就会导致补贴下降。但这是用欺骗，用不履行义务，不改善人们生活的方式来消除贫穷。”

About 32 percent of India’s 1.2 billion people, or roughly 400 million people, live in poverty, according to official estimates.

据官方估计，印度12亿人口中有大约32%，也就是将近4亿人生活贫困。

But several economists argue that these figures do not accurately reflect the extent of deprivation in a country where nearly half the children under five are malnourished.

但是，一些经济学家认为，这些数字并没有确实反映出这样一个国家被剥夺的程度，印度将近一半的5岁以下儿童营养不良。

A government appointed watchdog, the National Advisory Council, has been arguing that social support should now be extended to all citizens because the country can afford it.

政府指派的监督单位国家咨询委员会一直认为，社会支持项目现在应该扩大到所有公民，因为印度政府负担得起。

Economist Dreze, who was a member of the council, supports this. He says some states in the country, like Tamil Nadu in the south and Himachal Pradesh in the north, are showing the way.

经济学家德莱兹是国家咨询委员会的成员，他支持这个看法。他说，印度的一些邦，例如南部的泰米尔纳德邦，以及北部的喜马偕尔邦，正在出现这种方式。

“We can have comprehensive social security systems and many states in India are actually moving in that direction, expanding the public distribution system and I think the experience of that is reasonably positive that when more people are involved in the system, it works much better. A lot of people have a stake in it. When you have social services restricted to this minority of extremely poor households, it does not work very well, nobody cares," said Dreze.

德莱兹说：“我们可以有全面的社会安全体系，印度很多邦确实正朝这个方向发展，扩大公众分配体系。我认为，这种经验是合理正面的，显示了有更多人参与这种制度，其效果就更好。这种制度攸关很多人的利益。当社会服务不提供给极贫困家庭的少数人口时，这个制度的效果不会好，也没有人会在乎。”

Among those who agree with the proposal to expand benefits is security guard Hari Singh.

同意扩大福利提案的人之一是警卫哈里辛格。

He says, however the official norms define poverty, he counts himself among the country’s poor and would appreciate a helping hand from the government.

辛格说，不论官方订出的贫穷标准如何，他认为自己是印度的穷人，他会感激政府提供的帮助。