POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGY TN

The District level PRSP should particularly take into account agricultural
productivity, livelihood options, intra-district disparities in health, education, and
household incomes, and food security among other issues. A district level PRSP needs to
identify the basic economic activities of the districts, some indicator (like that of BPL
population) of the poor in the district according to blocks/urban segments, and block wise
examination of participation rates in educational and health services for rural areas.
Similarly, some indicators of work participation rate or employment opportunities can
help developing a block level targeting and policy intervention perspective. It is possible
to obtain detailed block level data on literacy and educational institutions and number of
students, various health indicators, and gender related indicators particularly on health.
These data can be used to formulate a suitable district level poverty reduction strategy.
a. Thiruvannamalai
Thiruvannamalai is situated 185 km from Chennai and 210 km from Bangalore. As per
2001 Census, Thiruvannamalai had a population of 130301. Males constitute 51 percent
of the population and females 49 percent. Thiruvannamalai has an average literacy rate
of 74 percent, which is higher than the national average of 59.5 percent: male literacy is
81 percent, and female literacy is 68 percent. In Thiruvannamalai, 11 percent of the
population is under 6 years of age.
a1. Income and Employment in Thiruvannamalai
In Thiruvannamalai, the share of primary sector has been larger than that of Tamil Nadu
although this share has been coming down. Based on 1993-94 price data, the share of
primary sector fell from 43.7 percent in 1993-94 to 31.5 percent in 2001-02. The share of
secondary sector has more or less remained stagnant after the mid-nineties but that of
the tertiary sector has increased. In terms of population living below the poverty line,
Thiruvannamalai fares much worse than of Tamil Nadu as a whole. Thiruvannamalai
district has 18 blocks. Out of these, 13 blocks have both urban and rural areas. The
block-wise distribution of BPL population in rural areas is summarised in Table 4.14.
Blocks are arranged in descending order of BPL head count ratio.
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