As per the latest National Statistical Survey Organisation survey for 2004-05, the country's poverty level based on 30 days data is 27.5 per cent, while based on 365 days data, the poverty level is 21.8 per cent.
The report "moving out of poverty: Perspectives from the bottom up," found that people move out and and fall into povery due to a different set of reasons. "The reasons for moving out of povery are not mirror images of factors that lead to falling down into poverty, each having different policy implications.
Focussing only on net figures can therefore lead to policy misdiagnosis," World Bank Senior Adviser Deep Narayan said at a seminar organised jointly with the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.
The sample study was carried out in the states of Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal over a period of ten years between 1995 to 2005. The survey included 30,000 individuals in 300 villages.
As per the study, the net figures for poverty reduction vary from 11.1 percentage points in the sampled villages of West Bengal, to 7.5 percentage points in Andhra Pradesh, 7.3 percentage points in Uttar Pradesh and 1.5 percentage points in Assam.
Explaining the change in the incidence of poverty in West Bengal, the study finds that 18.8 per cent of households ranked by a community-defined poverty line moved up and out of poverty between 1995 and 2005, but 7.7 per cent also fell into poverty resulting in a net poverty reduction statistic of 11.1 per cent.
"Had the falling been contained, poverty reduction could have ben as high as 18.8 per cent," Narayan added.
The study found that falling into poverty is primarily a story of shocks. The study which also collected 2700 life stories to explore the triggers for asset depletion found that death and health shocks (34 per cent) are the major causes for driving people into poverty followed by social shocks including family divisions and expenses towards marriages of children (27 per cent).
The study suggests to improve health insurance services and other safety net programmes to arrest declines into poverty and destitution. It also emphasises the need to address norms about social expenditures in policy making. "Non-economic factors like marriage can not be ignored while preparing policy response for the poor," Narayan said.
