When The Rangarajan Committee submitted its report on the national poverty rate to the new minister of state for planning at the end of June, it suggested raising the urban poverty line to a daily consumption rate of Rs 47 per person. If accepted by the new government, this revision will nearly double the official number of poor people living in India’s cities to a staggering 103 million—roughly equivalent to the entire population of Bihar. In the next decade and a half, the country’s urban population is expected to increase by more than half to 577 million.