Review Article

Indian J Med Res 126, October 2007, pp 364-373

Poverty alleviation programmes in India: A social audit

C.A.K. Yesudian

Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India

Received July 10, 2007

The review highlights the poverty alleviation programmes of the government in the post-economic
reform era to evaluate the contribution of these programmes towards reducing poverty in the country.
The poverty alleviation programmes are classified into (i) self-employment programmes; (ii) wage
employment programmes; (iii) food security programmes; (iv) social security programmes; and (v)
urban poverty alleviation programmes. The parameter used for evaluation included utilization of
allocated funds, change in poverty level, employment generation and number or proportion of
beneficiaries. The paper attempts to go beyond the economic benefit of the programmes and analyzes
the social impact of these programmes on the communities where the poor live, and concludes that
too much of government involvement is actually an impediment. On the other hand, involvement of
the community, especially the poor has led to better achievement of the goals of the programmes.
Such endeavours not only reduced poverty but also empowered the poor to find their own solutions
to their economic problems. There is a need for decentralization of the programmes by strengthening
the panchayat raj institutions as poverty is not merely economic deprivation but also social
marginalization that affects the poor most.

Key words Poverty alleviation - public distribution system - self-employment - social marginalization - social security wage employment

Introduction

Apart from this burgeoning middle class in the country,

the economic growth seemed to have touched the lives
of the poor also. According to the National Sample
Survey results, people living below poverty line have
dramatically come down during the post economic
reform era. People living below poverty line (BPL) came
down from 36 per cent in 1993-1994 (50th Round,
NSSO) 2 to 26 per cent in 1999-2000 (55 th Round,
NSSO) 3. Many economists question this dramatic
change in poverty level4-6 . However, the intention of
this paper is not to join the debate on the level of poverty
reduction in the country but to recognize the reduction

Since India became part of the global economy and

underwent economic reform in 1991, its economy is
growing at a faster rate of nearly 10 per cent per annum1.
In the process, India has become the fourth largest
economy in the world. In the last two decades, a
significant proportion of the population across the
country has reaped the benefits of this economic growth.
They have become the part of global economy and
market, and their lives have transformed into one of
global citizens with all the comforts and luxury in life.
364

YESUDIAN: SOCIAL AUDIT OF PAPS IN INDIA

of poverty in the country during the post-economic

reform era and to undertake a social audit of poverty
alleviation programmes in this era of fast economic
growth.
Relevance of poverty alleviation programmes
The fruits of economic growth have not benefited
everyone uniformly. Some are left behind and some
others are not touched by the benefits of economic
growth. It is proved globally that the so-called trickle
down effect does not work in all the societies and India
is no exception to this. There are various reasons for
this uneven development in the society. Modern
economy is technology driven and not labour-intensive.
High volume of high quality goods and services are
produced with fewer labour hands. In short, the modern
economy is not generating much employment and
sometimes it displaces and replaces labour with
machines and tools. The period of 1999-2000 to 20042005 saw rapid economic growth in the country but it
has not impacted on the unemployment problem of the
country. During this period, the unemployment rate
remained almost same for rural males and decreased
by just one percentage for urban male. On the other
hand, unemployment among females increased by one
percentage for urban and rural females7.
One-third of the countrys population is still
illiterate and a majority are not educated up to the age
of 15 yr. Even among the educated, all do not have
employable skills of the modern economy. The
education system is not tuned to the changing economic
scenario. The large agriculture workforce in rural areas
is not sustainable with dwindling cultivable land and
use of modern methods of cultivation. As a result, the
rural labour is pushed into cities in search of work but
they do not have any employable skills in the urban
formal sector often end up doing odd jobs in urban areas.
Urbanization in this country is mainly due to acute
poverty in rural areas rather than due to the economic
opportunities in urban areas. Further, poverty is not
uniformly spread in the country. States like Orissa, Bihar
and Madhya Pradesh have high level of poverty and
the levels have not come down significantly in the posteconomic reform era.
It is therefore that clear while the economic reform
did bring in prosperity to the country, the benefits are
not evenly distributed and some are even deprived of
the benefits. It is also pertinent to understand that some
of them are unable to be part of the economic reform
and do not have the capacity to participate in the

365

economic development process. Such groups need

government intervention to ensure that they are not left
behind in the development process and deprived of the
benefits because they do not have the capacity to be
part of the global economy. The government needs to
develop safety nets for such groups and try to
mainstream them in the development process. They need
welfare measures in the form of poverty alleviation
programmes to ensure that they survive if not prosper
in this era of economic reform. Further, the poor are
not a homogeneous population and their capacity to
survive the economic reform varied from one group of
poor to another. Especially, those who are below the
poverty line or the poorest among the poor need more
government help.
Poverty alleviation programmes
The programmes have been broadly classified into
self-employment programmes, wage employment
programmes, food safety programme and social security
programmes. The focus is on the central government
schemes only. It is not possible to map the special
programmes of all the States. It must be noted here that
some of the progressive States have added additional
components or given further subsidy to enhance the
benefits of the central schemes. For example, in the
highly subsidized public distribution system of Andhra
Pradesh, the BPL card holders were provided rice at
Rs. 2 per kg8.
Self-employment programmes: This programme was
started in 1970s in rural areas of the country in the name
of Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP)
to increase the source of income of small farmers and
landless labourers. The beneficiaries were given
subsidized credit, training, and infrastructure, so that
they could find new sources of earning. In this scheme,
agricultural labourers and small farmers received new
skills to involve in vocations other than cultivating land.
They included fishery, animal husbandry, and forestry.
In the 1980s, this scheme was extended to schedule
castes and tribes, women and rural artisans9.
IRDP suffered from certain shortfalls. One
important factor is the attempt to develop an
entrepreneur out of the unskilled landless labourer, who
has no experience in managing an enterprise. Therefore,
unviable projects were undertaken and sub-critical
investments were made leading to collapse of these
micro-enterprises. Banks were also indifferent to
provide credits to the poor. It did not make a good
banking sense to provide a loan to individual poor

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INDIAN J MED RES, OCTOBER 2007

farmer and landless labourer, who did not have any

experience in entrepreneurship. Poor targeting was
another problem, where many non-poor managed to get
the benefits.
Considering the shortfalls of the IRDP, the
government replaced this programme with Swarnjayanti
Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) in 1999. Considering
the non-viability of the enterprise of the poor individual
and his/her poor credit worthiness, SGSY focused on
groups to lend money and develop micro-enterprises.
This scheme involves the organization of the poor into
self-help groups or SHGs and are provided with credit,
technology, infrastructure and training. The SHG may
consist of 10 to 20 members. Thus SGSY is a creditcum-subsidy programme, where credit is the major
component and subsidy is the minor component. It is a
credit driven programme back-ended with subsidy.
Banks are generally comfortable with the credit
worthiness of the SHGs. Unlike the IRDP, SGSY is more
an empowering process and it focused on mainstreaming
the poor to join the economic development of the
country.
According to Asian Development Bank, microfinance is the provision of a broad range of services
such as deposits, loans, payment services, money
transfers, and insurance to poor and low-income
households and their micro-enterprises10. SGSY is one
such micro-financing scheme of the government.
Talking about micro-finance, the Grameen Bank
concept of Bangladesh is well known. It is a nongovernmental financial institution providing credit to
the poor in Bangladesh. In India, this concept is adapted
to the existing commercial banking system. Instead of
creating a parallel banking system for micro-credit like
in Bangladesh, the Reserve Bank of India issued a policy
circular in 1991 to all the commercial banks to
participate actively and extend finance to SHGs10. Banks
had always problems of doing social banking with
individuals, as they had to spend time and resources to
select those who would pay back the loan. But SHGs,
as a group presented a picture of solidarity among likeminded people committed to some micro-enterprise or
individual goal seem to be credit worthy for the bank.
The bank also ensured that the loan is put to use within
7 days for the purpose it was borrowed. Further, the
banks allow SHGs to pay in weekly installment of small
amount. Apart from the bank credit, the SHGs received
government subsidy for their micro-enterprises.
By using the existing banking system of the country,
the government has mainstreamed the rural poor into

the formal financial system and to the market economy.

By the end of March 2004, 1,232,768 SHGs have been
linked to mainstream banks for savings services, of
which 1,079, 091 groups have accessed credit from more
than 35,000 branches of commercial, co-operative and
rural banks10. The cumulative credit disbursed to these
groups was US$ 887.32 millions. With an average
membership of 16, at least 19 million people have access
to formal savings facilities through SHGs, of which
about 17 millions have also accessed credit services10.
This showed the magnitude and the impact of the
programme in the country. It has become a social
movement across Indian villages.
As a poverty alleviation programme, the success
of micro-finance is gauged from its ability to service
the population below the poverty line, i.e. targeting the
poor. Compared to the normal State led financial
institutions, the micro-credit programme performed
better in serving the poor. But looking within the
programme, various studies showed that only one-eighth
of the beneficiaries belonged to below poverty line. It
is in strong contrast to the Grameen Bank programme
of Bangladesh, where only 4.2 per cent were outside
the targeted population11. On the whole, the richest
among the poor benefited most and they have the
capacity to use credit and technology to their advantage.
As a second indicator of evaluation of microfinancing, one would like to see increase in income and
asset of the SHG members. Hulme and Mosley12 had
compared the change in income of micro-credit target
population and those who are not participating in the
micro-credit programme. Their study also differentiated
the targeted population into those who are above poverty
line and those who are below poverty line. The study
showed substantial income increase among the
borrowers - an increase of 202 per cent as compared to
the non-borrowers. The increase was 133 per cent for
the BPL borrowers. This showed that the programme
had surely benefited the BPL but at the same time those
above BPL could benefit disproportionately higher than
the BPL borrowers. In the same study, the researchers
had found that those who adopted new technologies in
their micro-enterprises had benefited the most and they
formed just 12 per cent of the beneficiaries11.
The sustainability of the programme depends on
the default rate of borrowers of the programme. While
Chavan et al11 claimed that the default rate of microcredit was high in India, Satish (2005)8 found that the
non-performing loan in his study area was zero per cent.
We may need more information from the banks to

YESUDIAN: SOCIAL AUDIT OF PAPS IN INDIA

analyze and find the default rate. It was interesting to

note that the default rate was less among the first and
second time borrowers as against third and fourth time
borrowers. Further, the default rate increased with the
increase in size of the loan Chavan et al11.
The strength of the micro-credit programme of India
is the linkage between SHG and the existing banking
institutions. It has helped the rural masses hitherto
outside the mainstream economy, to come within the
mainstream economy of the country. Since the existing
banking infrastructure is used, the administrative cost
is found to be low. It also gave the bank the opportunity
to penetrate into the rural areas and expand the banking
operations in the country.
Wage employment programmes: The main purpose of the
wage employment programmes is to provide a livelihood
during the lean agricultural season as well as during
drought and floods. Under these programmes, villagers
worked to improve the village infrastructure such as
deepening the village ponds, constructing village schools
and improving the rural roads. Thus the programmes not
only provided employment to the villagers but also
improved village infrastructure and created village public
assets. A positive fall out of this programme is that it
created higher demand for village labour, thereby pushing
up the wage of the labourer in the villages.
Wage employment programmes were first started
during the Sixth and Seventh Plan in the form of
National Rural Employment Programme (NREP) and
Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programmes
(RLEGP). These two programmes were later merged
in 1989 into more well known Jawahar Rozgar Yojana
or JRY. The JRY was supposed to produce employment
for the unemployed and the underemployed and to
improve the village infrastructure and assets. The
performance of JRY programme declined over a period
of time. As a result, fewer jobs were generated. One of
the reasons was lower allocation of funds for this
programme during the Ninth Plan period.
The JRY was revised and re-launched in April 1999
and was named as Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana or
JGSY. The secondary objective of the JRY has become
the main objective, i.e., creating economic assets and
infrastructure for the village and the creation of
employment is a by-product of the main objective. In
terms of wage employment, the new programme lagged
behind JRY. While the JRY produced 1.03 billions of
man-days of labour in 1993-1994, the JGSY produced
just 270 millions man-days each year. Since the

367

programme was implemented by the panchayats, many

did not have the capacity and experience to implement
the programme. Further, the allocation of funds was
inadequate to manage the programme. There are also
incidences of corruption by way of fudging the muster
rolls.
A special wage employment programme in the name
of Employment Assurance Scheme or EAS was
launched on October 2, 1993 for the drought prone,
desert, tribal and hill area blocks in the country. It was
further expanded to all the blocks in 1997-1998. The
EAS is also meant for providing employment during
lean season. While the scheme emphasized on creating
economic and social assets in the village, it prohibited
construction of panchayat buildings, secondary school
and college buildings and religious structures. The Food
for Work Programme was started as part of EAS in 8
drought prone States in 2000-2001. Here part of the
wage was provided in the form of food grains. Though
food grains were supplied free of cost to these States,
the uptake of the food grains was very poor.
Considering the fragmented efforts of different
wage employment programmes in the country, all these
programmes were merged into one programme called
Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana or SGRY in 2001.
The three-fold objective of this programme is generation
of employment for the rural poor, creation of community
assets and infrastructure, and ensuring food and
nutrition security for the rural poor.
A review of different wage employment
programmes in the Ninth Plan showed that there had
been erosion in the programme in terms of resource
allocation and employment generation. There was
steady decline in employment generation in these
programmes. The allocation for these programmes came
down from Eighth Plan to Ninth Plan. Ninth Plan
allocation was only 88 per cent of the Eighth Plan.
Further, the cost of generating employment had gone
up during this period. As a result, only 2.86 billion mandays of labour were produced during the Ninth Plan as
against 5.13 billion man-days of labour produced during
the Eighth Plan period. Even the allocated fund was
very poorly utilized9. A latest report collated by National
Social Watch Coalition shows that out of the Rs. 130
billion allocated for wage employment in rural areas,
only Rs. 65 billion was utilized, i.e. just 50 per cent of
the allocated fund. (Asian Age, June 30, 2007)13.
The wage employment programmes suffered from
various problems leading to poor implementation of

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INDIAN J MED RES, OCTOBER 2007

schemes. First of all, for the rural poor, it was difficult

to understand the nuances of the programme. As a result,
they were cheated and false muster rolls were prepared
to siphon off the money. Second, the schemes suffered
from the bureaucratic muddles. It is a centrally
sponsored programme with rigid guidelines, which may
not fit into local conditions. By the time it reached the
poor, it passed through the central government, State
government, panchayat and the beneficiary. At every
level, there is red tapism and delays leading to
underutilization of funds. Adding to all these, the
government started reducing the allocation to the wage
employment programme from the Ninth Plan. It is
totally a government managed programme at every level
and the poor is the silent or passive beneficiary of the
scheme. The poor had no say in the programme.
A comparison between the self-employment
programmes and wage employment programmes bring
out contrasting results. While the performance of selfemployment programmes improved over a period of
time by adopting SHG approach, the wage employment
programme declined over a period of time even after
merging different programmes into one programme9.
The major difference between the two programmes was
participation of the poor in the programme. While the
SGSY (self-employment programme) was highly
participative in nature and empowered the poor to a
great extent, the SGRY (wage employment programme)
was implemented by the government and the poor in
the community were the passive beneficiaries. The
administrative cost was high and the scope of corruption
was also high. As a result, fewer jobs were created
benefiting fewer poor persons. There were incidences
of non-poor receiving the benefits and ghost labourers
were enrolled by fudging the muster rolls. Also the
SGSY was totally managed by the SHGs and the
government played a supportive role. The least
involvement of the government administration surely
reduced the administrative cost and increased the
number of beneficiaries of the programme. The scope
of corruption was comparatively less in the SGSY, as
the SHGs are empowered and were aware of their rights
and benefits.
Food security programme: Meeting the very basic need
of access to food is a major challenge to the government
in the post-economic reform era. Those who are below
poverty line are faced with the problem of meeting this
very basic need. Starvation and hunger have been
reported in different parts of the country, even in
economically advanced States like Maharashtra. There

is malnutrition in all age groups, especially among

children. Problem of low birth weight due to
undernutrition of mother during pregnancy and
underweight of children are rampant in the country. The
purchasing power of certain section of the society is so
low that they cannot access food at the market price.
They need the safety net of food subsidy. In this context,
public distribution system or PDS assumes importance.
The PDS was originally a universal public
distribution system or UPDS. The original UPDS was
not conceived as an anti-poverty programme. The main
objective was to create a demand for food grains thereby
farmers benefiting from their produce. It was meant for
price stabilization of food grains by giving price support.
Due to widespread poverty in the country, the
purchasing power for food grains was low but the supply
of food was increasing. As a result, farmers got lower
prices for their produce prompting the government to
provide support prices and procure the food grains. Thus
the government had to sit with overstock of food grains
in the absence of a food distribution system. Thus the
UPDS was a means to distribute the food grains to the
people. Thus this strategy provided food subsidy to the
consumers and price support to the farmers.
In the post-economic reform era, the PDS became
a very significant poverty alleviation programme of the
government. The central government initiated a new
PDS programme in June 1997 and called it targeted
public distribution system or TPDS. Under this scheme,
the States are to identify households below poverty line
and provide them 10 kg of food grains at highly
subsidized price and this amount was raised to 20 kg in
April 2000. In addition, some States have provided
additional quantity of food grains or increased the food
basket by adding edible oil, sugar and cereals to the
BPL households.
The cost of operating the PDS is three-fold. First
cost component is the subsidy of the programme. The
cost of procuring the food grain is higher than the price
of selling it through the PDS. Second component of the
cost is the administrative cost involved in procurement,
transport and storing. The last component is the loss
due to wastage and pilferage that occur at different
stages of PDS-procurement to distribution.
One of the problems of PDS is the diversion of food
grain to the open market. Various studies show that onethird of the grains supplied to PDS leaked into the open
market in the UPDS programme. The leakage level had
increased to 41 per cent in the TPDS programme

YESUDIAN: SOCIAL AUDIT OF PAPS IN INDIA

because the price gap between the TPDS and the open
market was wider than the price difference between
UPDS and the open market price15. Even the urban poor
community is not aware of what they are entitled in the
PDS. As a result, the fair price shop owners cheated
them. The situation must be worse among the rural poor.
Another problem was the purchasing power of the
poor. The food grain is supplied to them once in a
fortnight. It is difficult for the families living below
poverty line to buy food grains for 2 wk in one go. Under
the TPDS programme, the quota of food grains was
increased to 20 kg. The very poor do not have the
purchasing power to buy such large quantity of food
grains at a time. This resulted in many not availing the
PDS and the unutilized food grain was diverted to the
open market.
Targeting was a major problem in the TPDS
programme. According to Jha and Srinivasan15, the
selection of beneficiaries was not transparent and the
basis for selection was too complicated for the local
officials to administer. It also involves high cost in
identifying the poorest among the poor. As TPDS
narrowly targets at the household level, it requires very
detailed data for these households and a complex and
expensive means testing process.
Apart from the issues of transparency,
administrative complications and high cost, social and
political factors played a role in identifying BPL
families. Caste factor played a role in rural areas. In
urban areas, the issue of residency played a role.
Those who are not residents but living in the slum
are not considered for the food subsidy. They are mainly
migrants. Those who are not in favour of the ruling
leadership were not included in the list of BPL. In urban
areas, those who are not living in dwellings but on the
roadside (pavement dweller) are the poorest among the
poor but they are excluded from the TPDS because they
do not have an address in the city.
According to Parikh16 a majority of the poorest of
the bottom 20 per cent of the households in the north and
north-eastern States do not procure any food grains from
the PDS. Dutta & Ramaswami8 found that 20 per cent of
the poor in Maharashtra do not buy food grains from
PDS due to lack of access. Ramaswamy14 had calculated
the cost of subsidy and found that it costs Rs. 3.14 and
Rs. 4.00 to transfer a rupee to the target group of bottom
40 per cent in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra
respectively. The cost of food subsidy is high because of
targeting errors and lapses in implementation.

369

Though PDS is a very important poverty alleviation

programme directly acting as safety net for the very poor,
it suffered from several problems during the
implementation. Due to the centralized procurement
system, it incurred very high administrative cost. Further,
there were problems of wastage and pilferage at every
stage of its operation. Then there are problems at the
consumer level in terms of buying a large quantity of
food grains at a time from the fair price shops. Finally,
the problem of targeting was a major issue, where nonpoor are included and many BPL groups like migrants
and pavement dwellers are left out of PDS. All these
problems led to much lesser benefits reaching the poor.
While the PDS has very high potential to protect the poor
from starvation and hunger, problems of its
implementation have reduced its actual potential to a great
extent.
Social security programmes: Social security
programmes are meant for those who are at the bottom
of the BPL facing destitution and desertion. The central
government has launched the National Social Assistance
Programme or NSAP in August 1995. Under NSAP,
there are three schemes. The first one is the National
Old Age Pension Scheme or NOAPS. A pension amount
of Rs. 75 per month is given to those who are above the
age of 65 yr and are destitute without any regular source
of income or support from any family members or
relatives. Though it is a very useful scheme for the
elderly destitute, the coverage of the programme was
not satisfactory. In the year 1999-2000, 8.71 million
eligible elderly were identified, but the scheme could
reach out to only 5 million beneficiaries. It was found
that the benefits really reached the poor and the leakage
rate was found to be low.
In addition to NOAP, the government has launched
another programme called Annapurna in April 2000 for
those elderly who are eligible for NOAPS but did not
receive it due to budgetary constraints. They are given
10 kilograms of food grains per month free of cost. This
programme did not take root in many States. As a result,
only Rs. 174.4 million were utilized out of the allocated
fund of Rs. 990.5 million in the year 2000-2001 9.
The second scheme under NSAP is National Family
Benefit Scheme or NFBS. Under this scheme, a lump
sum of Rs. 10,000 is paid to a family, where the
breadwinner of the family died of natural or accidental
causes. The total amount is given to a member of the
deceased family who has assumed the role of head of
family. This scheme is available to BPL families only.

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INDIAN J MED RES, OCTOBER 2007

Another scheme under NSAP is National Maternity

Benefit Scheme or NMBS. Under this scheme, a lump
sum of Rs. 500 is given to pregnant women belonging
to the BPL households. The pregnant woman should be
19 yr or above and the sum is given 8 to 12 wk before
delivery. The purpose of the scheme is to enhance the
nutritional intake of these pregnant women during
pregnancy to safe guard the life and health of the mother
and the infant.
Though there are large number of persons needing
protection under NSAP, these social security schemes
are small and their out reach is limited. In the absence
of universal social security scheme as seen in Europe14,
those who are at the bottom of the BPL are left to
destitution and desertion. It is the responsibility of the
government to take care of those who do not have any
support in the community.
Urban poverty alleviation programme: Urban poverty
is the spill over effect of rural poverty. It is the push
factor rather than the pull factor that is driving the
urbanization process in most developing countries like
India. Due to acute poverty in rural areas, the poor tend
to migrate to cities (push factor) in search of work. Since
they do not have any employable skills to get
employment in the formal sector of the cities, they end
up doing odd jobs in the informal sector of the city.
Since normal housing is not affordable to them, they
settle in lands that are not developed for housing, thus
forming slums in cities. Living conditions in some of
these slums are more depressive than the living
conditions of the rural poor in villages.
It is estimated that a quarter of the population in
large cities (million plus population) lives in slums. In
a city like Mumbai, a majority of 60 per cent of the
population live in slum and slum like housing. Central,
State and municipal governments use the dual approach
of providing minimum amenities to some slums that
are well established and also try to demolish and evict
the poor to prevent the spread of slums in the city.
Comparable to the self-employment and wage
employment programmes in rural areas is the Nehru
Rozgar Yojana in urban areas. It has three components.
The first one is the Scheme of Urban Micro Enterprises
or SUME. Under SUME, the urban poor (annual
income less than Rs. 11,850) are provided training to
learn new skills to start micro-enterprises. The
beneficiary gets a 25 per cent government subsidy with
a ceiling of Rs. 5,000 for the scheduled caste/tribe and
women and Rs. 4,000 for general beneficiaries. They

get a bank credit of Rs.15,000 for schedule caste/tribe

and women, and Rs. 12,000 for general beneficiaries.
Though the central government has made provision
for giving training and subsidy for starting microenterprises, it is not known as to how many of them
have actually started micro-enterprises after receiving
the training. Between 1990 and 1994, the government
had made financial provision to start 621,000 microenterprises but only 149,000 were trained in various
trades to start micro-enterprises. Out of those trained,
how many were able to start micro-enterprises was
not known.
The second scheme under the Nehru Rozgar Yojana
is the Scheme of Urban Wage Employment or SUWE.
Under SUWE, the labour of the urban poor is utilized
to create socially and economically useful public assets.
This scheme is applicable to small towns with a
population of less than 100,000.
The third component is the Scheme of Housing and
Shelter Upgradation or SHASU. Under SHASU, the
urban poor is given a loan not exceeding Rs. 9,950 and
a subsidy of Rs. 1,000. The beneficiary may opt for
additional loan of Rs. 19,500 from HUDCO.
Nehru Rozgar Yojana is implemented by the local
self-government with the active participation of nongovernmental organizations. Compared to the need of
the urban poor, the financial allocation is very small
and hence only a few could benefit from this
programme.
The largest urban poverty alleviation programme
currently operating in the country is the Urban Basic
Services for Poor or UBSP. It is based on the principle
of community development involving the community,
especially women to improve their communities and
environment. This programme is implemented in 25
States and 6 union territories covering 296 cities. Ten
million urban poor are benefited from this programme.
More than 130,000 women work as volunteers in this
programme. The programme is a partnership of city,
State and central governments along with NGOs and
UNICEF.
Unlike other urban poverty alleviation programmes,
which have specific service components, UBSP follows
a different approach. Communities are encouraged to
prepare their own community mini plan based on their
local needs and UBSP addresses these local needs.
UBSP has a strong health, nutrition, water and sanitation
components. The programme addresses the issue of low
immunization coverage and poor utilization of antenatal

YESUDIAN: SOCIAL AUDIT OF PAPS IN INDIA

care among the urban poor. It is claimed, dramatic

improvements have been seen in health and education
indicators17 .
Though urban population is less than 30 per cent
of the total population, the country is going to get
urbanized soon. In States like Tamil Nadu and
Maharashtra, almost half of the total population is living
in urban areas. These governments have to develop
strategies to deal with the problems of the urban poor.
Beyond economic benefit: From the above review of
poverty alleviation programmes, one gets the impression
that these programmes are not benefiting the poor in
terms of increasing their income. For example, the PDS
is plagued with seepage, corruption, high administrative
cost and targeting errors. Self-employment programmes
like the micro-credit scheme is better utilized by the
non-poor or those who are above BPL. Wage
employment programme is caught in red-tapism and
administrative delays leading to poor utilization of the
allocated funds. All these factors have been used by
some economists to argue against these programmes
and to suggest the winding up the programmes. Looking
at purely narrow economic point of view is not the right
approach to poverty alleviation. Poverty does not mean
not having enough income alone. Poverty means not
having access to a whole lot of services like education,
health services, water supply, sanitation and so on. It
also means loss of status in the community, exclusion
from certain social functions, and a sense of inferiority
in the group or community. In short, poverty means
marginalization of an individual or household in the
community.
There is no denial that poverty alleviation
programmes should lead to high income to the poor but
to come out of the culture of poverty, one needs to be
empowered and also requires access to basic services.
While some of the poverty alleviation programmes
discussed above, may not be performing well in terms
of utilizing the allocated funds and increasing the
income of the poor, these programmes have contributed
to the social arena of poverty. For example, wage
employment programme was not very successful in
terms of utilizing the allocated resources and generating
additional employment for the BPL. But this programme
has created village level assets and infrastructure in
terms of schools, health centers, roads and ponds.
Similarly, SHGs formed by the women has given them
tremendous confidence and empowered them to become
entrepreneurs. Today, SHGs are not only active in

371

creating micro-enterprises but also they are involved in

implementing community programmes like
immunization programmes, literacy programmes and
so on. Some of them have empowered to the level of
contesting panchayat elections and become members
of Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRI). Again there is no
denial that all these cannot be achieved without an
increase in income. Therefore, the economic and social
aspects of poverty alleviation are interlinked to one
another. Economic upliftment alone cannot alleviate
poverty but it must lead to social upliftment in terms of
access to services, empowerment and independence.
Therefore, the current poverty alleviation programmes
in the country should broaden their focus and goal in
addition to increasing income to achieve the target of
removing poverty from the country.
Towards poverty alleviation
First of all, involvement of the local communities
is key to the success of poverty alleviation programmes.
In the absence of community involvement, the
programmes are plagued with bureaucratic muddle and
corruption at every level. Wage employment is an
example to show how too much of administrative
interference has led to underutilization of funds, high
administrative cost, corruption and poor employment
generation. Contrary to the wage employment
programme, self-employment programmes like microcredit is successful because of peoples participation in
the form of SHGs. The government has taken a major
step in this direction in the form of 73 rd and 74 th
amendment to the constitution to give more powers to
PRI 9. While a few States have made use of these
constitutional provision better than others, most of the
States still lag behind handing over these programmes
to PRIs. While PRIs are created in most of the States
and elections are held, these institutions are not given
the financial resources, administrative powers and the
capacity to run programmes. State governments still
hold the financial powers and the PRI is not in a position
to plan and decide based on their needs. The
administrative machinery of the PRI is very week to
carry out these national level programmes. Also, the
PRI does not have the capacity to handle resources and
technical capacity to implement programmes. These
issues have to be addressed immediately to strengthen
PRI to implement poverty alleviation programmes.
If the PRIs are stronger, then the decentralization
of the poverty alleviation programme can take place.
Currently, all the poverty alleviation programmes have
national guidelines with very little space to maneuver

372

INDIAN J MED RES, OCTOBER 2007

to meet the local needs. For example, in the current

PDS, the food grains are supplied every fortnight
making it difficult for the poor to buy high quantity of
grains at a time. This should be left to the local
communities to decide the frequency of selling grains
to the BPL. Further, targeting the BPL is a major issue
in TPDS, where targeting error is high resulting in
seepage of benefits to non-poor. Identifying the BPL
household is a labourious process. It is time consuming
and costly. Targeting can be done differently for
different settings and places. Geographical targeting in
very backward districts of the country may be an easy
way of targeting the poor. In another setting like a slum,
it may be the female-headed households that can be
targeted for the TPDS. Similarly, all the pavement
dwellers can be targeted for the TPDS in large cities.
In the case of wage employment programmes, the local
communities through PRI mechanism should be able to
identify the beneficiaries and also to identify the type of
work to be carried out in villages that can create economic
and social asset to the village. Such decentralization can
generate more man-days of work to a large number of
poor persons as well as meaningful community assets and
infrastructure. Thus decentralization and localization are
important to make the poverty alleviation programme
efficient and relevant for the poor.
Apart from decentralization and community
involvement, participation of the poor in the programme
that affects their welfare, is important. Some of the selfemployment schemes failed to take off because no effort
was made to involve the poor in identifying the skills,
which they can learn easily. As a result, the skills
imparted are not utilized. Some of the skills imbibed
may not have job potential in the community. On the
positive side, micro-enterprise under the selfemployment programme was successful because of the
role of SHGs. The SHG members actively participated
in the whole process and decided for themselves for
the kind of skills they wanted to learn and also the kind
of credit they needed from the bank to start the microenterprise. Many well-intentioned programmes fail to
take off because of lack of understanding of the ground
realities due to lack of participation of the beneficiaries.
At the macro-level, there is a need to co-ordinate a
myriad of poverty alleviation programmes of the central
government and the State governments. The transfer of
central funds to the States for different programmes
should be efficient. Currently, such funds and goods
like food grains are not fully utilized by the States. There

is a need to strengthen the financial management

capacity of certain States to use the funds efficiently.
These are the States where the percentage of the BPL is
more than the national average.
It is unfortunate to note that in an era of rapid
economic growth, public funding for the social sector
has come down drastically. Central funding as well as
the State funding in many major States have decreased
in the era of economic reform and rapid economic
growth. The fruits of economic growth should be
ploughed into the social sector to elevate the quality of
life in the country by raising the economic and social
status of the population. It makes good economic sense
also, because better quality of human resource in terms
of better health status, employable skills and better
purchasing power will add on to the economic
investment of the country.
Conclusion
Debate on poverty in India has remained mostly
in the domain of economists. Poverty is defined in
terms of income, expenditure and nutritional value
(calorie intake). Social dimension of poverty is a
neglected area of study. Poverty is more of social
marginalization of an individual, household or group
in the community/society rather than inadequacy of
income to fulfill the basic needs. Indeed, inadequate
income is therefore one of the factors of
marginalization but not the sole factor. The goal of
poverty alleviation programme should aim merely
increasing the income level of individual, household
or group but mainstreaming marginalized in the
development process of the country. The country
cannot claim economic growth when a section of the
people are marginalized to the periphery of the society.
The rapid economic growth process should accelerate
the access to services like education and health
services for all, especially the marginalized citizens.
The link between ignorance and poverty and ill
health and poverty are well-established. There are
diseases of poverty such as malaria, tuberculosis,
diarrhoea and malnutrition. Having fallen ill due to
poverty, the poor do not have the resources to seek
quality health care, for which he/she has to borrow
money for treatment. Indebtness due to hospitalization
leading to poverty has been well documented. Poverty
therefore is a complex phenomenon of many dimensions
not merely the economic dimension. Poverty alleviation
programmes should address the issue of poverty from
broader social and economic perspectives.

YESUDIAN: SOCIAL AUDIT OF PAPS IN INDIA

Maharashtra. Economic and Political Weekly 2001; 36 :

1524-32.

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Reprint requests: Dr C.A.K. Yesudian, Professor & Dean (R&D), Tata Institute of Social Sciences, P.O. Box 8318, Deonar
Mumbai 400088, India
e-mail: [email protected]