POVERTY UNDONE

Believe it or not, poverty has inched a step or two backwards in this BIMARU State. But then, that's not the whole picture. In the micro level, there may be a decline in the number of poor but the rate at which it is happening is lopsided. The number of poor in urban areas is not declining at the same pace as it's happening in the rural areas.

Decline in poverty in Uttar Pradesh has made headlines last week.

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Believe it or not, poverty has inched a step or two backwards in this
BIMARU State. But then, that's not the whole picture. In the micro level, there may be a decline in the number of poor but the rate at which it is happening is lopsided. The number of poor in urban areas is not declining at the same pace as it's happening in the rural areas.

A joint report on the Second Poverty and Social Monitoring Survey (PSMS-II) prepared jointly by the Directorate of Economics and Statistics of the State's Planning Department and the World Bank released this week has indicated that the per capita expenditure of the poorest one-tenth of the population increased faster (109 per cent) than the per capita expenditure of the richest one tenth (62 per cent) between 1993-94 to 2002-2003.

This bit of good news may come handy for the State Government as it indicates that various welfare programmes were percolating to the lowest strata of the society.

This, however, has left several questions unanswered.

a) How poverty was showing a declining trend particularly when the agriculture growth rate was going south? b) Whether income levels of the poor have gone up? c) How is this expenditure being financed?

With many more such questions doing the rounds, Director of the Giri Institute of Development Studies AK Singh was among the first ones who raised this soon after the report was released on Thursday.

"Are the people taking loans to finance their needs," he asked. Making a significant point, a senior State Government officer said: "If the number of those living below poverty line was coming down then why the demand for BPL cards under the Public Distribution System (PDS) was going up?"

Such questions only indicated that the good news emanating from the report might just be short lived?

There is growing concern in the corridors of power over such worrying trends that may prove to be a benchmark vis-à-vis monitoring of government's poverty alleviation and other welfare programmes. Migration of population from rural to urban areas or remittances being made by family members working in urban areas may be factors behind the declining number of poor in rural areas.

True, a substantial part of the population has migrated to urban areas in search of jobs. Experts feel that this distress migration too was not a good trend. This was adding to concentration in slums in urban areas, they feel. A considerable number of people may have crossed the poverty line. A large chunk of them, however, remain close to poverty line. A slight variation may disturb the trend.

Those who may have just crossed the poverty line may fall below the below poverty line yet again by a slight variation in income level. This is possible if the assumption of increased borrowings was taken to be true.

Such questions need definite and immediate answers to gauge the success of various policies of the State Government.

Significantly, other disturbing trends indicated in report is a sizeable decline in the proportion of population that benefits from government welfare programmes.

Such programmes include the old age pension, disability pension, widowhood pension, benefits of pregnancy, subsidised credit and Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) that are intended for welfare of the poor and other vulnerable groups.

As per the report, the proportion of households benefiting from one of the above schemes has gone down from 5.6 to 4.2 per cent between 1999-2000 and 2002-2003. This decline is observed both in rural and urban areas.

This decline may be partly explained by the administrative cap kept on the number of beneficiaries in any district under these schemes. While the number of household has increased, the number of beneficiaries didn't and it reflected a proportionate fall. The report itself has observed that concerned departments would be better placed to provide a factual answer to the phenomenon of decline in the proportion of beneficiaries.

Interestingly, the report observed that overall targeting of these programmes towards the poor has worsened over a short span of time.

In 1999-2000 nearly 37 percent of all beneficiaries were from the lowest income group, said the report. In 2002-2003 this number declined to 24 per cent, it said adding the targeting in rural areas was slightly worse than in urban areas.

It is another matter that these programmes have done relatively better in identifying socially deprived groups in the State, the report states. It adds that this also has worsened over a period of time.

Moreover, the awareness of the government sponsored public health services has also declined. There was a decline in awareness of vaccination, immunisation and use of iodised salt while awareness about family planning and use of ORS has improved. Awareness about AIDS was found to be 50.1 per cent.

A large gap has been found in knowledge between urban (71 per cent) and rural (45 per cent) areas of the state.