Chronic Poverty and Hunger in KBK Region of Orissa: Identifying Causes in the Perspective of a Case Study in Watershed Development Project in Nabarangpur District

Viewing the poverty in the KBK region of Orissa as dynamic, severe and multifarious, this paper uses income poverty and multi-dimensional poverty, social exclusion, gender, violence and policy approaches to identify the causes of chronic poverty in this region. Spatial disadvantages of the KBK region in terms of remoteness, agriculture based subsistence economy and depleting income from NTFP are major factors contributing to chronic poverty. Moreover, the social exclusion of tribal and lower caste populations from participation in social, political and economic processes creates conditions for the persistence of chronic poverty among these groups. A predominant set of values, beliefs and institutional procedures operate systematically and consistently to the benefit of ‘higher’ caste people at the expense of others. Neglect of a gender analysis in developmental policies and the treatment of households as a unit for BPL enumeration is another cause of chronic poverty in this region. Despite many women acting as economic backbones of their families, heavy liquor consumption by men and violence against women does not help these families to escape poverty. Finally, government anti-poverty programs have also remained ineffective due to top-down policies, manipulation in participatory programs, faulty methods, and politics of BPL people, beneficiary selection, and leakage of growth. Multidimensional deprivation owing poor public services creates cumulative causation of poverty. Lastly, even though migration is a common phenomenon in this region it is limited due to lower skill levels and exploitation by the middlemen.