Falling poverty, rising privations: trends over a quarter century in a slum and a village near Delhi
- 2017
- p.595-615.
- Dec
The need to track multi-dimensional poverty in place of just subsistence is being widely recognised by policy makers. However, the challenge of quantifying deficits in housing and sanitation as well as ﾑfreedomsﾒ is immense and a number of dearths that bring maximum suffering to people (like risks spawned by contaminated water and food supplies) remain uncharted in common counts of ﾑpovertiesﾒ and deprivations. In this context, long-term, multi-disciplinary accounts of urban and rural poverty in a range of communities can be of help. As a contribution, this article offers an analysis of changing indices of material poverty as well as ﾑprivationsﾒ like the worsening health environment, in the microcosm of a village and a slum from Delhiﾒs periphery, observed over a quarter century through observations, surveys, group discussions and semi-structured interviews. The study shows that ﾑabsolute povertyﾒ has declined, in both the sites, since late 1980s but ﾑprivationsﾒ have risen on many
Rural poor - India Privatisation - India - Delhi Poverty - India