The magnitude of urban poverty in the state is increasing, according to the Economic Review 2012 released here on Thursday.

Nine
risk factors have been considered for  determining poverty of
households. Those with less than 5 cents of land or no land, with
dilapidated house or no house, no sanitary facilities,  no access to
safe drinking water within 150 metres, woman- headed household, no
regular employed member in family, socially disadvantaged group,
mentally retarded, disabled, chronically ill member in the family and
families without colour TV have been considered as factors for
determining the  poverty. Any family having 4 or more such risk  factors
is classified as family at risk of poverty.

The increase in
poverty is due to the stagnation in manufacturing industry resulting in
lower income for urban dwellers. Due to rapid increase in land prices
and construction costs, a good number of urban people in Kerala are
forced to live in slums, the report says.   Availability of drinking
water and sanitation facilities are grossly inadequate. Urbanisation has
an important impact in social and economic development and is
associated with many problems, the Review says.

Urbanisation is
related to issues like migration from villages to towns and relative
cost of providing economic and social services in towns of varying
sizes, providing housing,  water, sanitation facilities, transport and
power.  Only one-fourth of the households in slums  have electricity.
While rural poverty is getting concentrated in the agricultural labour
and artisans households, urban poverty results in casual labour
households.

Kudumbashree Mission had played a role in alleviation
of poverty to a certain extent. The Neighbourhood Groups (NHGs) had
received Rs 138 crore through linkage banking as on September 30, 2012.
The Economic Review states that 97,993 NHGs had availed linkage banking
so far.