An official response from the Ministry of Rural Development to the article by Santosh Mehrotra and Harsh Mander (

Using sample data from the 62nd round of the National Sample Survey, this paper estimates the headcount ratio of poverty for 2005-06. This estimate, based on the methodology recommended by the 1993 Planning Commission expert group, is compared with the poverty ratio for 2004-05 as derived from the 61st round of the nss.