Poverty exists everywhere in the world. It manifests itself either in the form of relative poverty, which prevails in developed countries and/or in the form of absolute poverty be seen in underdeveloped countries. The conceptualisation of poverty be broadly classified into four schools of thought, namely, the deprivation school, nutrition school, income-expenditure school and the structural school. Historical views on poverty also reveals the transition of thinking processes on the issue. The state intervention policies have been make-shift from community development programmes to direct attack on poverty such as Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) and other programmes as time warranted.
This volume brings together eight chapters encompassing apart from introduction, review of literature, objectives and methodology, poverty alleviation programmes and impact of IRDP. The impact, however, examined across the agro-climatic zones, the economic and impact categories from among the beneficiaries, across the social groups and also gender-wise, the role of financial institutions like Commercial Banks and Regional Rural Banks which are participating in implementation of IRDP. The level of productivity of assets among different parameters has been calculated using Incremental Capital-Output Ratio (ICOR). Revisits were conducted and met few beneficiaries in the study area, which helped to know the level of transformation at these households through IRDP and based on this few case studies were also written. This book also provides some policy suggestions to strengthen IRDP which ultimately aim" at enhancing the living standards of the rural poor.