First attempt to calculate poverty in India was taken by Dadabhai Naroji in 1868. After independence a team was formed by planning commission in 1962 to estimate poverty line and define poverty. In 1971, V.M.Dandekar and Nilkanth Rathi defined a criterion for poverty. In 1979, Y.K. Alagh committee presented a report on demand and minimum consumption required. It helped to determine poverty line in India. It was decided that people in rural area should get 2400 calorie per person per day and in urban area it should be 2100 calorie per person per day. Thereafter, a working committee was made under the Presidency of T.D. Lakadawala, Suresh Tendulkar and C. Rangrajan for estimating poverty by planning commission. In 1993-94 and 2004-05 poverty was estimated by Lakadawala formula.

Suresh Tendulkar and C. Rangrajan considered consumption expenditure as a basis of poverty. They created a poverty line basket to measure poverty line and estimated the required consumption expenditure as per market price. According to them 27 crore people were below poverty line in 2011-12. In 2011-12 C. Rangrajan used ? 972/person/month in rural area and 1407 ?/ person/month in urban area as a basis. According to it 29.5% people were below poverty line.