Rural poverty in Madhya Pradesh: looking beyond conventional measures

Multidimensional view of poverty in Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh is one of the less developed states of India, with sharp inter-regional differences in socio-economic status. This paper provides a detailed review of the incidence of rural poverty in Madhya Pradesh. The authors shift away from the limited notion of income poverty, and focus on the multifaceted incidence of poverty. Particular emphasis is on issues concerning access to public services.

Key findings from the study include:

evidence of high gender discrimination reflected in the adverse sex ratio, extremely low adult female literacy rate and the poor status of reproductive and child health programmes
almost all the facilities including medical, educational and banking are located more than two kilometres away from the villages surveyed
most of the centrally-sponsored schemes are implemented through district development agencies, or panchayats whose finances are weak
as indicated by the poor, employment generation and opportunities of education are the preferred mode for poverty alleviation.

Some of the major recommendations that the paper provides include:

efforts should be focused not only on poverty reduction but on pro-gender development policy
supply-side infrastructure bottlenecks should be removed to achieve better accessibility to public facilities
larger budgetary support is needed for health, education and more effective institutions for accessing low cost credit
implementing the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) may go a long way in generating additional employment in rural areas.

Related content

Document
The Green Revolution and Poverty in Northern Tamil Nadu: a Brief Synthesis of Village-Level Research in the Last Half-Century
B. Harriss-White / STEPS Centre, Institute of Development Studies, 2020
Between 1972 and 2014, in Northern Tamil Nadu (NTN), India, the Green Revolution (GR) in agriculture was studied through five rounds of village-level studies (VLS).
Document
The green revolution and poverty in Northern Tamil Nadu: A brief synthesis of village-level research in the last half-century
B. Harriss-White / STEPS Centre, Institute of Development Studies, 2021
Between 1972 and 2014, in Northern Tamil Nadu (NTN), India, the Green Revolution (GR) in agriculture was studied through five rounds of village-level studies (VLS).
Document
Access to formal banking and household finances: Experimental evidence from India
V. Somville, L. Vandewalle / Chr. Michelsen Institute, Norway, 2017
Access to formal banking is spreading across the world. Obtaining a bank account may transform how people manage their finances, and affect their savings and consumption. We report from a field experiment that randomly provides access to a bank account to a representative sample of villagers in rural India.
Document
Mobility, entitlement and perceptions of inequality
J. Seiermann / Chr. Michelsen Institute, Norway, 2017
This paper proposes a model how individuals form beliefs on inequality based on their own and their family’s experience. A person’s income is determined by their effort and family background. Individuals do not know the true importance of effort in this equation, but estimate it based on their own and their family’s past experience.
Document
Social protection and wellbeing: Food security in Adivasi communities, Chhattisgarh, India
Wellbeing and Poverty Pathways, University of Bath, 2014
Despite economic growth, persistent levels of absolute poverty remain across the world. Social protection is an important response to this, guaranteeing a basic level of income support. The state of Chhattisgarh, India, provides an interesting model, as government commitment and people’s action combine to buttress food security in communities with historically high levels of disadvantage.

Eldis

Rural poverty in Madhya Pradesh: looking beyond conventional measures