Source and Composition of Urban Poverty in India: Trends and Implications

Abstract

There is a growing urbanization of poverty in India. The recent development pattern and associated process of urbanization in India have led to concentration of poor people more in small towns than in big or metro towns. Poverty level is thus negatively related with the size of the town. Though the magnitude of rural poverty is large, the incidence of urban poverty was as high as 25.7 percent in 2004-5 and 15 percent in 2007-8. Urban poverty is a complex phenomenon. Unlike rural poverty, it is not just inadequacy in income to buy requisite amount of calories, it reflects deficits in education, sanitation, housing, water supply and health care services of urban delivery system. The available data disprove the common belief that urban poor constitute a large part of inflow of poor from rural areas. The purpose of the present endeavour is to examine the trends, composition and character of urban poverty and how it is associated with rural poverty. The study also underlines significant policy implications in tackling the challenges of urbanization and poverty.