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Poverty incidence down, consumption expenditure up, reveal studies

Poverty incidence in the country declined between 1987-88 and 1993-94 at the aggregate level, according to a government study.

At a disaggregated level, however, there are some states and regions that performed exceedingly well, and others that did not.

This was part of the studies released on Monday in New Delhi by the secretary of department of statistics M D Asthana. The study on ''counting the poor'', has been conducted by Shubahshis Gangopadhya of the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi centre, and Amaresh Dubey of the North Eastern Hill University, Shillong.

Apart from discussing various issues connected with the department, Asthana also released a study on the changing pattern of consumption expenditure in India by P D Joshi.

The study on poverty is based on the findings of a project sponsored by the Central Statistical Organisation.

Gangopadhyay said even though theoretically the hypothesis was that liberalisation and reforms should have brought down poverty, the time period undertaken by the study was too short to establish this on an empirical basis.

The economist said the poverty situation in Rajasthan had improved considerably presumably because of the large number of non-government organisations in the state who had created awareness leading to empowerment of women and the poor to some extent.

A cross sectional analysis for the years 1987-88 and 1993-94 showed that in both years, Bihar had the highest poverty followed by Orissa. West Bengal stayed put in the relative rankings.

The study's findings hold regardless of the poverty line and the price index used.

Within the states, performances were less uniform than that across the states. As far as within state, disparities are more a problem of the state administrative machinery. The studies highlight the greater role that states must play in alleviating poverty.

The consumption expenditure report examines how far the level of living in the rural and urban areas of the country improved or deteriorated during 1972-73 to 1993-94 and also with reference to selected population groups, that is lower group comprising bottom 30 per cent of the population, middle group comprising 30 to 70 per cent of the population and the top group comprising top 30 per cent of the population.

The study reveals that monthly per capita consumption expenditure had gone up from Rs 44 in 1972-73 to Rs 281 in 1993-94 in the rural areas and Rs 63 to Rs 458 in the urban areas. In real terms, the rise of MPCE works out to approximately 22 per cent for the rural areas and 17 per cent for urban areas between 1972-73 and 1993-94. The proportion of expenditure on food in the total expenditure had fallen from 72.8 per cent in 1972-73 to 63.2 per cent in 1993-94 in rural areas and this decline in the urban areas was 64.5 per cent to 54.7 per cent. Noticeable changes were also observed with respect of groups of items during the period.

There is no consistent trend observed by the study in calorie intake and the level of undernourishment. Kerala with the low calorie intake of about 1965 has only about 28 per cent undernourished children but Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal with high calorie intake of 2,200 to 2,300, have more than 57 per cent of the children undernourished.

UNI