Indian officials say social benefits will not be limited to those who make less than 50 cents a day in rural areas and 66 cents a day in urban areas.

Planning Commission head Montek Singh Ahluwalia said Monday that government entitlements should go beyond the controversial poverty benchmark proposed last month by the federal government.

The commission had said that people who spend more than half a dollar a day on food, education and health in rural areas and 66 cents a day in India’s urban areas are not poor. That is about half the World Bank’s poverty line of $1.25 a day.

The new poverty benchmark generated an outcry from social activists, economists and opposition politicians who said the threshold was not enough to survive and left out millions who should be counted among the poor.

Ahluwalia and Indian Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh told reporters in New Delhi Monday that the government will now rely on a census survey to determine who is eligible for welfare programs.