Reginal Poverty among the Social and Religious Groups Across Regions in Uttar Pradesh, India

The objective of this paper is to analyze and understand the regional patterns of poverty among the social and religious groups. The study is based on secondary data, descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation, graphs, and charts as tools of analysis. The study reveals that the overall incidence of poverty has declined among all the social groups as well as among all religious groups in U.P. over the period from 2004-05 and 2011-12. The prevalence of rural poverty is generally higher in comparison to urban poverty in both periods. Nevertheless, the incident of rural and urban poverty varies by the social, region and religious groups. We found that more than half of the SC household population was poor in the year 2004-05, which came down to 41% in 2011-12. Across the regions, the highest incidence of poverty was in the eastern region and lowest in NUGP region of the state (2004-05), and the highest incidence of poverty is found in the central region instead of eastern region and lowest again in NUGP region of the state in 2011-12. This analysis assists the policymakers in identifying critical regions with respect to socially and economically excluded and marginalized sections so as improve the well-being of the poor people, who are at the bottom of the pyramid in the state.