India has no official data showing how many people got out of or slipped into poverty over the last 10 years, with the Narendra Modi government delaying exercises to estimate poverty and shelving the reports of surveys that had already done so. The standard way of estimating poverty has two steps. One, the National Statistical Office or NSO (formerly National Sample Survey Organisation or NSSO) carries out a sample Consumer Expenditure Survey every five years to see how much families are spending on necessities. Advertisement Two, a previously set poverty line — a set of minimum expenditure criteria — is applied to the survey findings to determine what percentage of families qualifies as poor. This poverty line is expected to be revised every 10 to 15 years.