The concept
Poverty in normal parlance refers to income poverty, which is measured in terms of the inability of people to purchase the minimum required calories. The expert group on poverty appointed by the Planning Commission in 1993 had recommended that the definition of poverty be extended to include deprivation in basic needs such as education, health and shelter as also other basic amenities such as drinking water. However, not much progress has been made in widening the definition of poverty in India.

In 1996, the United Nations' Development Programme (UNDP) put forth the concept of capability poverty. Capability poverty was defined as deprivation in education, health and child nutrition. In 1997, human poverty was advocated in UNDP's annual human development report. Initial efforts to measure human poverty were made in 1996 using the capability poverty measure. This method was replaced in 1997 by the human poverty index (HPI). HPI included indicators of literacy deprivation, health and public provisioning of social sector services and child nutrition.

The HPI has had its share of criticism. Critics point out that by leaving out indicators of income deprivation, the concept of human poverty seems to have thrown the baby with the bath water.

Thus, while there is some merit in employing an integrated method to measure poverty that includes both income as well as non-income measures of deprivation, it is also useful at this stage of development of the concept to keep it separate from income poverty. This would allow one to juxtapose the levels of income deprivation against the levels of non-income deprivation and have a better understanding and clear picture of the inter-relationship between the two. It is of particular importance to the Indian states as there is a peculiar lack of correspondence between levels of income, prevalence of income poverty and human poverty. Paradoxically, there are states where there is high income growth but high poverty levels. The prime example being Maharashtra. Maharashtra is one of the richest states of India with over 37 per cent of its population living below the official poverty line in 1993-94 as per the Planning Commission estimates based on National Sample Survey (NSS) data.

But states such as Punjab, which have a combination of high per capita income and low poverty, do not necessarily guarantee low levels of deprivation in education and health.

The measurement
Given this situation, let us now look at the levels of human poverty prevailing across the Indian states. HPI is computed on lines calculated in countries covered in the UNDP's Human Development Report in 1997. The UNDP used three dimensions in deprivations for calculating human poverty namely, deprivations in longevity, knowledge and economic provisioning. For the Indian states, deprivation in longevity (P1) was measured by the variable percentage of population not expected to live up to the age of 40, which is calculated using life tables. Deprivation in knowledge (P2) is calculated using two indicators, namely, adult illiteracy and percentage of children in the age group of 6-14 not attending school with the first variable being given a weight of one-third and the second a weight of two-thirds. Deprivation in provisioning (P3) is in two parts: public and private. In public provisioning, the indicators used were: (a) percentage population without access to health services, (b) percentage of populationwithout access to safe water, and (c) percentage of population not living in electrified houses. Deprivation in private provisioning was represented by the percentage of children under the age of four who are malnourished. The formula then used for computing HPI was as follows:

HPI = [(P31+P32+P33)-3] 1/3
Consider the HPI values of 15 major Indian states. The all-India level value of human poverty is 41 per cent, which is much higher than the proportion of persons living below income poverty in 1993-94. While the two types of poverty are measured differently and therefore cannot strictly be compared, it is nonetheless true that the proportion of population suffering from non-income dimensions of poverty is much higher than that suffering from income poverty. When the components of HPI were examined, the highest deprivation across states was found in the dimension of provisioning followed by deprivation in knowledge. Least deprivation was recorded in the dimension of health.

Since there has been some controversy regarding the NSS estimates of poverty, it was necessary to choose the estimates prepared by the Expert Group of the Planning Commission for 1987-88 and 1993-94.

Since poverty is a negative indicator, the ranks are given in the reverse order: the state with the lowest level of poverty has been accorded the highest rank and states having high poverty ranked the lowest. The latter rankings are considered to be underestimates while the former pertaining to a drought year could be overestimates.

A glance at the state-wise poverty levels indicates that a lack of correspondence between income poverty and human poverty exists in many states. States such as Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana are cases where the ranks on human poverty are poor than on income poverty. It is a reverse situation in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala which indicates that despite a high prevalence of poverty, these states have been able to reduce the levels of deprivation in education and health.

The causes
What are the causes for this sorry state of affairs? While relatively inadequate government expenditure on social services could be an important reason, it is not the only reason. What is lacking is a sense of direction in social sector spending.

Most of the allocations, particularly in the health sector, go towards financing higher level facilities in urban areas even as the rural areas are starved of good quality curative services.

In education, there has been much discussion of the poor quality of schooling and lack of infrastructure. Since most of the government expenditure goes towards paying salaries of the teachers, it is not surprising that there is not much left to finance educational equipment and ensure quality teaching.

Tokenism, piece-meal implementation and leakages, an euphemism for corruption, have marred the implementation of social sector programmes in the country. Naturally, this has resulted in the sorry spectacle of India becoming a repository of the largest number of illiterates and unhealthy people in the world.

Development strategies have never given prime importance to these areas, as other sectors were considered more 'productive'. It is only recently that it has dawned on all concerned that the country can hardly afford such enormous waste of its vast human potential.

The implications
Implications of high levels of human poverty in Indian states are disturbing is to say the least. There is a reasonable degree of consensus among academicians that high levels of human poverty continue to exist in the country despite a decline in income poverty levels in the past two decades. If such a decline in income poverty has not led to lower levels of deprivation in essential capabilities such as education, health and nutrition, something seems to be wrong with either the data (as many would say) or, the rise in incomes has been too meagre for the population to achieve better levels of education, health and nutrition. And if the situation persists, it may be difficult to sustain the rate of reduction in income poverty and reversal of the declining trend can be a distinct possibility.

In order to be sustainable, income poverty reduction must lead to higher levels of education, health and nutrition of the masses. Only then will there be better quality of life for majority of the households as also greater contribution of human resources to economic growth. Whichever way one looks at this phenomenon, high levels of human deprivation cannot be tolerated. Recent efforts by some state governments have been directed towards reducing the levels of such deprivation in education. In fact, the literacy rates of several states are expected to move up substantially, data on which will be available once the new millennium census comes through.

The available data from NSS for 1997 indicates that the literacy rate in Bihar, one of the worst states in this respect, did move up from 39 per cent in 1991 to 49 per cent in 1997. Despite this, more than half the population in the state is illiterate.

So then, here is an urgent need to improve the literacy rates in the country, particularly in the low attainment states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. For higher literacy rates to have a snowballing effect on economic development, a simultaneous attempt to ensure better health and nutrition facilities is a must.

Sadly, such a thrust is not evident in most states, particularly with respect to health and nutrition. In fact, there is a move to reduce subsidies for food and increase user charges for health even as the quality of services provided continue to be abysmal.