Effect of rural development and targeted expenditure towards poverty alleviation in Odisha, India

Objectives: To evaluate the direct tools of poverty alleviation in Odisha, and investigate the response of alleviation programs to poverty. Method: The assessment proceeds with three simple steps of identifying: who, what and how by focusing on four important aspects namely; rural employment, rural development, food security and social security. The causes of poverty are matched with the available tools of active and operational schemes in Odisha state reported by the Dept. of Economics & statistics, Govt. of Odisha and World Bank Survey Reports during the period 2009 to 2011, the corresponding target coverage and progress are located to deduce the end period outcomes of impact on poverty rates. The under coverages shown or identified, were related to respective relevant alleviation programs using horizontal comparative analysis, which shows the changes from the reference period in absolute amount and percentages. Findings: The study reveals that the benefits and outcome of social sector and development programs (rural employment, PDS, development, social pension) have not been realized to their fullest extent. For instance, the coverage of employment schemes is low (penetration is only 3.8% in 2017 and 6.5% in 2018 against 138.53 Lakhs BPL persons) and meager to cause a fall in actual poverty. The coverage under Gopabandhu Gramin Yojana is lower at 40 % in 2019 covering 9229 projects (out of 22,538 targeted projects). Novelty: It demonstrates the use of broader and comparative assessment of key schemes to evaluate the end outcome of poverty rates and matches the periodic poverty limits to per capita gross expenditure incurred by the state. Keywords: anti-poverty; programs; alleviation tools; beneficiaries; Odisha