The report card of poverty in India

Supriya Sharma, Radhika Bordia

Monday, October 20, 2008 (Mumbai, New Delhi)

It takes just common sense to see why some people remain poor while others climb
out. Now there is an academic study that maps this even more closely.

Professor Aasha Kapur, along with Professor Shashanka Bhide, has analysed data
collected by the National Council of Applied Economic Research over three
decades.

First in the 70s, then in 80s and finally in late 90s, researchers went back to the
same 3,000 odd families in 260 villages across the country to find out how they had
fared.

What they found was deeply disturbing. Between 1971 and 1981, 52 per cent of the
poor had remained poor. While the number came down in the next two decades
(1981-1998), at 38.6 per cent, it was still alarmingly high. Confirming that in India,
poverty is chronic, persistent and often unshakeable.

"We tried to develop a framework which is called drivers, maintainers, interrupters kind of framework," said Professor Aasha Kapur, an
economist.

Drivers: What propels people into poverty?

l High healthcare costs

l Adverse market conditions

l Loss of assets

l High interest loans from moneylenders

l Social expenses, deaths, marriages

l Crop Failure

Maintainers: What keeps people stuck in poverty?

l Casual agricultural labour

l Landless households

l Illiterate households

l Larger households with more children

Interrupters: What helps escape from poverty?

l More income earning opportunities

l Proximity to urban areas

l Improved infrastructure

l Initial literacy status of household head

l Income from physical assets: cropland, livestock, house

Another important finding is that while more people among the Scheduled Castes had been able to escape poverty, fewer among Scheduled
Tribes had.

No wonder, consistently remote tribal areas show up as India's hunger spots.

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