Rural-Urban Poverty and Inequality in Bihar: A Disaggregated Level Analysis

The objective of this paper is to identify the gap between rural and urban, in terms of standards of living characterised by monthly per capita consumption expenditure and head count ratio in the poorest and the least urbanised State of Bihar, India. Poverty reduction was not significantly observed in the State from 2004- 05 to 2011-12, though it is small, not evenly distributed across the districts of the State. In this background, for an appropriate policy measure, the rationale of the present study is to highlight poverty and inequality treating district and rural-urban as a scale of units. The disparity is visible in terms of monthly per capita consumption expenditure and head count ratio, which has tended to decrease very significantly at the district level in Bihar. The analysis depicts an interesting variation as the development is centred only in Patna. Being a capital city of the State, Patna has been able to pull up resources and all the benefits in the State. There is a need to bring poor and vulnerable people under mainstream by providing equal distribution of wealth and equal opportunity to them.