Delhi on 32 Rupees a Day?

It's a small but noticeable change. Ever since we got back to Delhi, everything has gotten a bit more expensive. It's all relative, of course, but it's all around: new menus with new prices; cycle rickshaws in Gurgaon, which have doubled from Rs 35 to Rs 70 to take Tyler from the metro station to work. I used to hoard Rs 10 notes, which were worth more than its actual value (like laundry quarters) for auto rickshaws; now nowhere I go is less than Rs 50.

So the recent New York Times India blog titled: "Delhi on 32 Rupees a Day?" sounded incredulous. After all 32 rupees is about 65 cents... and not enough to even take a cycle rickshaw five minutes in Gurgaon, outside Delhi. Unreal to think that living on this amount of money could be remotely possible as an individual, let along a family.

Link here: "Delhi on 32 Rupees a Day?"

Excerpt below:

"How little do you have to live on to be considered poor in India?

It is a question that has spawned an emotional national debate since India’s Planning Commission last week filed an affidavit with the Supreme Court declaring that any urban resident who spent more the 965 a month, or approximately 32 rupees a day (about 65 U.S. cents) would not be categorized as BPL – or below poverty line.

Prem is one of the thousands of men who drive the yellow and green auto rickshaws that serve as New Delhi’s discount taxi service. He came to the capital 27 years ago, from the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh, searching for a better life. It has not been an easy search.

“After 27 years of working as an auto driver,” he said, “I have managed to save only Rs 25,000 (about $500). If you see our home, the condition we live in, your appetite will die.”

He lives with his wife and four children live in a one-bedroom tenement in the Delhi neighborhood of Shiv Vihar. He pays about 1,200 rupees per month (about $24) to send three of his children to government schools. His eldest son, 19, earns money working at a small graphic design company, though the father doesn’t understand exactly what the son does.

“He had to drop out of high school because I couldn’t afford to keep him there anymore,” he said.

To meet his expenses, Prem works six days a week, earning between 200 and 250 rupees a day, (or about $4 to $5). No matter how hard he tries, every last penny is spent, he says. “Even if I manage to put together a little something, it gets spent when a family member falls ill.”

Rising prices are chewing away his livelihood. A meal that once cost him 15 rupees now costs 30 rupees. Nothing fancy, he says, just a meal of plain roti, daal and one sabzi (vegetable). To feed and clothe his family, he spends about 5,000 rupees a month (or $100). During the broiling Delhi summer, the family of six shares a single fan.

“How will I ever save enough to pay for my children’s weddings,” he asked. Asked what represented luxury to him, he said a new set of clothes for his children. “I have no margin to provide those,” he said. “They just make do with old clothes bought secondhand.”

He has a government ration card that qualifies him for subsidized grain and kerosene but he says “every time I go to the store, the shopkeeper tells me he’s run out of ration – he probably sells it on the black market.”

He scoffed at the notion that anyone spending more than 32 rupees a day was not poor.

“What can 32 rupees buy you?” he asked. “Just about a one-time meal from a street vendor. But who’s listening to us, anyway?”"