This paper examines the incidence and dynamics of poverty over a period of three decades from 1970 to the end of the 1990s. We use a national rural panel household data set, based on household surveys conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research in three rounds in 1970, 1981 and 1998. It examines the trends in the incidence of poverty in India from a longitudinal perspective. The study corroborates the view that the period of 1990s experienced a slower decline in poverty compared to the previous decade, although the incidence of chronic poverty declined even in the latter period. It also examines the pattern of growth in consumption expenditure to understand how it tracks trends in poverty.
