Poverty and Development Planning in India

This book covers a wide range of issues related to poverty and inequality in the context of development planning in India. It presents an account of the planning and development strategy at the backdrop of the measures to effect poverty reduction. It describes India's planning process and analyses the mathematical models of growth and investment, which are at the back of Plan formulation, and provides an account of the measures of poverty reduction. The centrality of this analysis is the transition from growth measures pursued until the 1970s, to a mix of growth and redistribution since the 1980s, and then to inclusive growth. This book covers four core areas. First, the treatise on mathematical models to chart out a growth path, the manner and method of using poverty as a parameter in the consistency type growth models and the analytical details of the changes in the planning strategy during the period of economic reforms contained here give seminal insights into the role of planning in poverty reduction. Second, it comments on the methodology of the measurement of poverty, comprehensively summarising the debates surrounding it. Third, the identification of poor and accrual to their income through 'direct attack on poverty' has been chronicled with a critique's eye. Here, a clinical examination of the specific strategies and their outcomes, with a quantitative analysis of the general growth process and the income redistributive anti-poverty programmes is also done. Fourth, it undertakes a disaggregated quantification of poverty – at the regional level, in rural and urban areas, and by social and occupation groups. These reflect the stratified nature of Indian society, and are integral to the formulation of meaningful plan for poverty reduction. The issues addressed here are essential to understand poverty and inequality in India's rapidly growing economy. Many of them are contentious and have been dealt with academic rigour so as to enable a fair assessment.