Poverty and Levels of Living in India: A State Level Analysis

Since independence poverty has come to be the matters of great concern and obligation. It is widely dispersed across regions, across rural and urban areas. India witnessed a high momentum in economic growth during last two decades. So many beneficiary-oriented and special employment programmes have been undertaken to eradicate poverty. But the problem of poverty has continued to persist with fluctuating severity and has remained a central challenge of development. An increase in real per-capita income/expenditure indicates an improvement in absolute levels of living which is directly associated with reduction in incidence of poverty. But raising percapita income does not have any impact on poor and vulnerable section of the society until and unless it is associated with the reduction in inter-class disparity. This disparity indicates the relative levels of living, an improvement of which reduces the incidence of extreme poverty. Therefore, not only the absolute levels of living but also the relative levels determine the true picture of poverty reduction in an economy. An attempt has been made in this paper to throw light on the behaviour of absolute and relative levels of living and to examine how these two explain the true picture of poverty reduction in India and its major constituent states.