 Poor Practices: contestations around ‘Below Poverty Line’ status in IndiaBina Fernandez Third World Quarterly, 2010, vol. 31, issue 3, 415-430 Abstract: This article has two objectives. First, it interrogates the normative understanding of the identification of poor people as a technical process confined to the domain of experts. The paper analyses the construction of Below Poverty Line (bpl) status in India, and provides evidence for how this is contested at multiple levels of the policy process, through both formal and informal policy practices. Second, the paper uses a case study of a major anti-poverty policy, the Suvarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, to demonstrate how the cumulative outcome of formal and informal policy practices is the erosion of the redistributive intent of policy. The paper emphasises the importance of foregrounding within policy discourse the politically contested nature of the processes of identifying poor people, and of determining their eligibility for anti-poverty policy resources. The typology of policy practices generated calls for deeper recognition of the significant influence of informal policy practices on the policy process in India. Date: 2010 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:31:y:2010:i:3:p:415-430 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2010.488473 Access Statistics for this article Third World Quarterly is currently edited by Shahid Qadir More articles in Third World Quarterly from Taylor & Francis Journals |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.