ABSTRACT
At the district level, no valid estimates are available on the economic prosperity of households for the state of Uttar Pradesh or other states in the country. Poverty measures based on consumer price index provide valid estimates at the state level and for rural and urban areas. In this chapter, an attempt is made to provide district-wise estimates based on census data from the house listings and censuses of 2001 and 2011 for both rural and urban areas. To develop a wealth index of households at the district level for rural and urban areas separately in Uttar Pradesh, data related to housing, available amenities and household assets are used. The results are based on 1,288,031 households from the 2001 census and 1,646,077 households from the 2011 census. Information was collected on housing details, amenities available and assets among households. The collected information was subjected to the principal component analysis method of factor analysis to generate coefficients for each district of Uttar Pradesh using a modified approach based on only the first principal component approach used in most wealth index construction. The results are compared between the 2001 and 2011 censuses to examine change over 10 years. The result shows that progress during the 10 years from 2001-2011 remains minimal in most of the districts in the state. Rural areas of the state show less progress as compared to urban areas. Most of the districts of the Bundelkhand and Purvanchal region remain at the lowest level of economic development as compared to districts in the northern part of the state. Out of 71 districts, nearly three-fourths of districts fall at a lower level of development in the state. Based on this result, government programmes and policies can be utilized to uplift the condition of households living in the underdeveloped districts of Uttar Pradesh.
