Read the below paragraph carefully answer the question:

Case study - II

Poverty has many faces, which have been changing from place to place and across time and has been described in many ways. In pre-independent India, Dadabhai Naoroji was first to discuss the concept of poverty line. In post-independent India, there have been several attempts to work out a mechanism to identify the number of poor in the country. The official data on poverty is made to the public by the planning commission. It is estimated on the basis of consumption expenditure data collected by the National Sample Survey organisation. Most poverty alleviation programmes implemented are based on the perspective of the five year plans. The government has a variety of programmes to generate wage employment for the poor unskilled people living in rural area.

Which of the following is correct answer to discuss the concept of a poverty line in pre-independent India ?

Jail cost living

The correct answer is option (2) : Jail cost living

In pre-independent India, Dadabhai Naoroji was the first to discuss the concept of a Poverty Line. He used the menu for a prisoner and used appropriate prevailing prices to arrive at what may be called ‘jail cost of living’. However, only adults stay in jail whereas, in an actual society, there are children too. He, therefore, appropriately adjusted this cost of living to arrive at the poverty line. For this adjustment, he assumed that one-third population consisted of children and half of them consumed very little while the other half consumed half of the adult diet. This is how he arrived at the factor of three-fourths; (1/6)(Nil) + (1/6)(Half) + (2/3)(Full) = (3/4) (Full). The weighted average of consumption of the three segments gives the average poverty line, which comes out to be three-fourth of the adult jail cost of living.