Vulnerability to poverty and malnourishment of rural households in drought prone Rajasthan

Alleviation of poverty has been a paramount policy concern in the least developed and developing countries. Today's poor may or may not be tomorrow's poor. Today's non-poor who face high probability of large adverse shocks may on experiencing the shock become poor tomorrow. Therefore, from policy perspectives merely head count of poverty doesn't work but an ex-ante assessment of poverty and malnourishment i.e. who are expected to be poor or malnourished holds greater relevance. Rajasthan being the most drought prone state was chosen for the study based on household consumption expenditure data of National Sample Survey Office for two years, one being normal year and other being drought. Data was analysed to estimate Vulnerability to Poverty (VEP) by using three stages feasible generalized least square techniques. Ex-ante vulnerability in normal year was found to be 7.7% and ex-post was 12.4% which increased to 13.9% and 20.9% respectively in drought year. Regional variation in poverty was found to be very high i.e. 48.2% in southern and 9.7% in northern Rajasthan that inflated in event of drought. Chronic poor per cent was found to be 7.7 during normal year that increased to 13.9% in event of drought. Agricultural households were found to have some resilient mechanism against poverty as compared to those households that are not directly dependent on agriculture. Incidences of malnourishment were much higher than that of poverty. Vulnerability to Expected Poverty (VEP) an assessment of household's vulnerability to poverty is a better guide then mere classification of currently poor and non-poor. It provides a better forward looking anti-poverty interventions for policy formulation.