Coherence between Existing System of Defining Urban Poor with Kuppuswamy and Hashim's System; Which is More Relevant?

BACKGROUND: Identification of below poverty line (BPL) households is of paramount importance to provide benefits under poverty alleviation and other programs. OBJECTIVES: (1) To assess households in urban slums in terms of housing, assets, and amenities. (2) To compare three different systems of socioeconomic status (SES) – ration card holders, Modified Kuppuswamy Scale, and Hashim's system. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional, community-based study was conducted in urban slums of field practice area of a medical college, Pune. Considering 35% of urban households in India qualify as poor, sample size of 593 households was calculated. A predesigned, validated, pretested questionnaire was used, covering sociodemographic domains including indicators of three systems. Agreement between these scales was calculated by kappa statistics. RESULTS: Total 639 households were surveyed covering 3078 slum population. Percentage of BPL families according to possession of yellow ration card, Modified Kuppuswamy Scale, and Hashim's system were 35.99%, 48.67%, and 48.51%, respectively. The proportion of agreement between Kuppuswamy scale and ration card was 55.71% and for Hashim system and ration card was 51.79%. CONCLUSIONS: The present study revealed no agreement between these three systems. Hashim system gives more accurate and realistic picture of SES of the urban slums households owing to its holistic approach.