Different methods (norms) of fixing poverty line:

1. Dadabhai Naoroji's Jail cost of living.

2. Task force on projections of minimum needs and effective consumption.

Transient poor are comprised of two categories of poor (i) Churning poor and occasionally poor. Churning poor regularly move in and out of poverty such as small farmers and seasonal workers. Occasionally poor are rich most of the time but may sometimes have a patch of bad luck.

Jail cost of living: Various attempts have been made to develop a scale to measure poverty. Dadabhai Naoroji was the first to measure poverty. He used the jail cost of living term to measure the poverty line. He used the menu for a prisoner and used appropriate prevailing prices to arrive at the cost of consumption of an adult prisoner.

In pre-independence India, Dadabhai Naoroji was the first to discuss the concept of poverty.

Poverty line cut off should be determined in terms of consumption rather than in terms of income. The reason is that consumption reflects actual use of the goods and services by an individual as well as the type of goods actually used while income only shows capacity to purchase.