Mapping Urban Poverty for Local Governance in an Indian Mega-City: The Case of Delhi

Abstract

The article maps urban poverty, using the `livelihoods assets framework' to develop a new index of multiple deprivation, examining the implications for area and sector targeting by policy-makers. This article deals with the index and the results for Delhi. The study maps: the spatial concentration of poverty; the diversity of deprivation at ward level; whether poverty is concentrated in slums; and correlations between voting patterns and poverty levels. The index uses census data disaggregated to electoral-ward level for multicriteria analysis, through GIS. Results show that hotspots of poverty are diverse in character, but are not concentrated in slum areas, with strong implications for policy-making and poverty studies methodology. These results suggest that the new index allows better insight into poverty with better targeting possibilities for policy-makers.