National Human Development Report: 2001 - Indira Gandhi Institute ...

38ECONOMIC ATTAINMENTS AND WELL-BEINGNATIONAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2001estimating the Head Count Ratio of the poor at State level, separately forrural and urban areas for over three decades. It currently uses a minimumconsumption expenditure, anchored in an average (food) energy adequacynorm of 2400 and 2100 kilo calories per capita per day to define State specificpoverty lines, separately for rural and urban areas. These poverty lines arethen applied on the NSSO’s household consumer expenditure distributionsto estimate the proportion and number of poor at State level.At the national level, the incidence of poverty on the Head CountRatio declined from 44.48 per cent in 1983 to 26.10 per cent in 1999-2000.It was a decline of nearly 8.5 percentage points in the ten years periodbetween 1983 and 1993-94 followed by a further decline of nearly 10percentage points in the period between 1993-94 and 1999-2000. In absoluteterms, the number of poor declined from about 323 million in 1983 to 260million in 1999-2000. The decline has not been uniform either across Statesor across rural and urban areas. While the proportion of poor in the ruralareas declined from 45.65 per cent in 1983 to 27.09 per cent in 1999-2000,the decline in urban areas has been from 40.79 per cent to 23.62 per centduring this period.At State level, among the major States, Orissa, Bihar, West Bengaland Tamil Nadu had more than 50 per cent of their population below thepoverty line in 1983. By 1999-2000, while Tamil Nadu and West Bengal hadreduced their poverty ratios by nearly half, Orissa and Bihar continued to bethe two poorest States with poverty ratio of 47 and 43 per cent respectively.Among others, Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, Gujarat, Punjab, AndhraPradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka have also succeeded in significantlyreducing the incidence of poverty. Rural Orissa and rural Bihar continued tobe the poorest among rural areas both in 1983, as well as in 1999-2000. Inurban areas, the poorest three States in 1983 were Madhya Pradesh, UttarPradesh and Orissa whereas in 1993 it was Orissa followed by MadhyaPradesh and Bihar.Number of Poor (in Millions)Rural-Urban Gap340300Combined260220Rural180140100Urban601983 1993-94 1999-2000Shelter and Quality of HousingThe available data permits analysis of two aspects of quality of housingand shelter namely, living space or the number of rooms available to ahousehold and the quality of construction of the residence i.e., whether ahousehold resides in a pucca or a kutcha construction. The proportion ofhouseholds living in one room declined both in rural and urban areas, whilethose living in two or more rooms increased in each of the Census conductedsince 1961. In 1981, at the national level, nearly 73 per cent of thehouseholds were living in houses with two or less rooms. The proportion wasidentical for rural and urban areas. In 1991, the proportion of householdsliving in houses with two or less rooms declined marginally to 71 per cent, atthe national level. This proportion was marginally higher in rural areas incomparison to urban areas.The Census also presents data on quality of houses based on thematerial used for construction of walls and roof separately. If both the wallsand roof are made of pucca material, a house is classified as pucca. If wall androof are made of kutcha material the house is classified as kutcha. In all other