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VOL. 11, ISSUE 4 (2025)
Understanding urban poverty in Tamil Nadu: A micro level explorative study
Authors
Dr. R Karthikeyan, Dr. D Vettriselvi, Dr. S Dharmaraj
Abstract
The growth in the incidence of urban poverty
has been rapid and represents a challenge for the urban populations, policy
makers and professionals in cities world-wide. Despite the scale of the task we
are faced with, it is only recently that the attention of researchers,
multi-lateral and international organizations have turned more specifically to
the urban dimension of poverty. Urban poverty is a major challenge before the
urban managers and administrators and one can look the problem of poverty in
the context of accessibility to basic services. Though the anti-poverty
strategy comprising of a wide range of poverty alleviation and employment
generating programmes has been implemented but results show that the situation
is grim. It is a fact that segments of the urban population are not income-poor,
they face deprivation in terms of lack of access to sanitary living conditions,
and their well-being is hampered by discrimination, social exclusion, crime and
violence, insecurity of tenure, hazardous environmental conditions and lack of
voice in governance. In spite of a number of urban poverty alleviation measures
taken by the government still the incidence of poverty exists and further there
are social, economic and regional variations observed both at macro level as
well as micro level. Hence, the present study tries to understand the
characteristics of urban poverty in one of the recently incepted districts,
Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu, South India. The specific objectives of the present
study are to analyse the accessibility of the basic facilities and services to
the urban poor; to know the affordability of basic facilities and services; to
know whether the basic services and facilities are adequately available or not
to the urban poor in the study area; and to suggest possible policy measures to
reduce the incidence of urban poverty and to make the basic services available,
affordable and adequate to the needy people in the study area and to improve
the standard of living of the respondents of the study area. It is observed
from the analysis that the state-wise poverty ratios have witnessed a secular
decline continuously over the period of time. Though poverty has declined at
the macro-level - the HCR has declined from 55.34 in 2005-06 to 14.96 in
2020-21 in India, there are more variations found among states. The overall
perception of the accessibility of basic services to the sample respondents
registered that only 21% of the respondents are found with poor access, low
affordability and inadequacy of basic services while 36% are found with
moderately accessible, affordable and adequate of the services. Thus, in the
study area, 43% of the respondents are highly accessible, affordable and
adequate with these basic services to them. To conclude, it
is hoped that the achievement of SDGs at Global level, Viksit Bharat-2047 at
National Level and Tamil Nadu- Vision 2023 at State Level can
play a pivotal role in the promotion of the urban quality and removal of the
incidence of poverty in the urban area in the study region.
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Pages:137-143
How to cite this article:
Dr. R Karthikeyan, Dr. D Vettriselvi, Dr. S Dharmaraj "Understanding urban poverty in Tamil Nadu: A micro level explorative study". International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research, Vol 11, Issue 4, 2025, Pages 137-143
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