The Hindu Business Line : Remaining poor in Kerala

Last week some more myths about the “Kerala model” of development were put to rest by the 64th round of the socioeconomic survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), which is part of the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

The survey found that around 37.5 lakh people in Kerala can be classified under the below poverty line (BPL). There is also a pronounced rural-urban divide, with a curiously skewed pattern – there are more poor people in the urban areas of the State than in the rural regions. While 13.28 per cent of the rural population in the State is BPL, the percentage is 20.2 in the urban areas.

Noted economist and Vice-Chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board, Prabhat Patnaik, explained the startling statistics on high poverty level in urban areas by attributing it to the migration of the rural unemployed to the urban areas.

The NSSO survey, which began on 1 July 2007 and will go on until 30 June 2008, focuses on participation and expenditure in education, employment and unemployment and household consumer expenditure. The survey covers both urban and rural areas in all the districts, and to complete it, NSSO officials will visit 8,100 households spread over 240 panchayat wards and 128 urban blocks.

In Lakshadweep, the survey will cover eight rural wards and 16 urban blocks. Apart from the NSSO’s own efforts, the Kerala Government’s Department of Economics and Statistics will survey 12,000 households. For the first time, consumer expenditure will be calculated for two sections – the affluent class and the non-affluent class.

Among the criteria delimited for identifying the affluent class in rural areas are: ownership of car/jeep/tractor or other vehicles; possession of refrigerator/washing machine or 7 hectares of land or 3.5 hectares of agricultural land. In urban areas, people who spent Rs 2,904 or more per month are included in the affluent class.

Data and information unearthed by the survey will be the basic material that the Planning Commission will use to determine the poverty line. The information collected by NSSO will also be used for policy planning.

The preliminary findings for Kerala are revealing. The average consumption expenditure in rural Kerala – Rs 1,013 – is the highest among all the Indian States, says the survey.

The expenditure in urban Kerala is Rs 1,291, which puts it second in the list of Indian States, behind Punjab. From the level and pattern of household consumption prevalent in Kerala, a person would need an average monthly income of Rs 430 in rural areas and Rs 559 in urban areas to be declared living above the poverty line.

Some of the findings of the NSSO survey regarding Kerala have been theorised earlier by academics and Kerala watchers. Mridul Eapen of the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, in a spatial analysis of Kerala’s economic diversification, attempted to examine the structural transformation of employment, spatially, over the period 1971-91 in Kerala.

According to Eapen, “Kerala is unique in many respects among the States of India, one of which is its settlement pattern, characterised by a rural-urban continuum. Applying the "continuous method" to study spatial change in the occupational structure across rural, small towns and large urban units (comprising of cities/big/medium towns and agglomerations), we find that economic diversification in general and manufacturing in particular, has been fairly rapid in rural areas. Within the latter, some rural settlements, numbering about 128 villages, were transformed into urban areas during 1971-91. An examination of certain socioeconomic characteristics of these villages, which can be used as proxies for "agricultural-rural" and "urban" linkages reveals that, in fact, both types of linkages play a dominant role in economic diversification depending on the location of the village vis-a-vis large urban units.”

Evidently, Kerala’s past State-led efforts to overcome the absence of a “trickle down” of developmental strategies to the rural areas seem to have paid off partially.

But the recent NSSO finding that there are 37.5 lakh people below the poverty line in Kerala is cause for concern.

The writer can be contacted at kgkumar@gmail.com

More Stories on : Economy | Random Walk | Kerala

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Costly crude makes industry turn to corn-based ethanol

Mobile biodiesel training hits the road

6 crore people in AP to have health cover

Remaining poor in Kerala

Chamber moots 16% RoI guarantee for hotels in NCR

Hydrocarbons ‘discovery’ definition may be altered

Aspects of the 123 accord

Cisco offers SMBs ‘easy lease’ option

Kerala Govt, CII in pact for ‘skills varsity’

Under scanner

‘APEC membership can offer India many benefits’

Obulapuram mining lease renewed

APSRTC to boost rural service

Rupee squeeze prompts textile cos to change tack