This is the first in a series of papers that consider the appropriateness of poverty lines for urban populations in particular regions, nations and cities. It examines the relevance and accuracy of the official poverty line as applied to the Indian city of Pune, a large and successful city with around 3 million inhabitants. This highlights the very large gap between the 2 per cent of households that are designated as poor, by applying the official poverty line in Pune to the 40 per cent who “live in poor conditions”.

By way of introduction, this paper describes the development of poverty lines in India, from the nineteenth century to the present, and assesses their limitations as an indication of poverty. It demonstrates that using official poverty lines results in considerable underestimation of the extent of urban poverty, and oversimplifies the nature of poverty by disregarding or disguising the reality of the lived experiences of poor people.

In its discussion of the application of the official poverty line to Pune, the paper also examines the wider nature of poverty in the city and how this has changed over time, using data from a longitudinal study of slum settlements in Pune between 1976 and 2003. Despite the city’s rapid economic growth, most of the slum households surveyed saw little or no increase in their real incomes nor better job opportunities, and little possibility of getting accommodation outside the slums. The paper ends with a discussion about how to achieve a better understanding and measurement of the numerous and interconnected aspects of urban poverty.