Urban households having five members with daily consumption basket of food and other items of more than Rs 161 will not be entitled to benefits provided to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families, as per the Plan panel's latest definition of poverty.

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In rural areas, households with same number of members spending more than Rs 130 on consumption of food and other articles will not fall in the BPL category.

"At June 2011 price level, for a family of five, this provisional poverty line would amount to Rs 4,824 per month in urban areas and Rs 3,905 in rural area," the the Plan panel said in a affidavit in the Supreme Court.

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Based on the recommendations of the Tendulkar Committee, the Planning Commission has set this poverty line at Rs 965 per capita per month in urban areas and Rs 781 per capita per month in rural areas.

Accordingly, only those individuals consuming less than Rs 32 per day in urban areas and Rs 26 in rural areas will be treated as poor.

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The Planning Commission further said that 40.74 crore (407.4 million) persons were poor as on March 1, 2005. India's population as per the 2011 Census is 121 crore (1.21 billion).

The poverty estimates for 2009-10 are being worked out on the basis of detailed NSSO data, the Plan panel said, adding that "the provisional estimates suggest that the total BPL population as per 2009-10 estimation may be lower" than in 2004-05.

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The Tendulkar Committee has expanded the definition of poverty to include expenditure on health and education besides calorie intake.