Abstract
Reduction of poverty has been the most important goal in all development efforts in the recent past. Even though there is a general understanding of what poverty is, its extent has always been a challenge. Complexity arises in determining which approach one should adopt and what indicators to use in measuring poverty. The type of poverty measures and indicators to be used depends on the purpose of measurement. Policy-makers quite often look for the number of people below the poverty line to evaluate the success or failure of policies. Programme managers at the grassroots level look for easily measurable proxy indicators, which are useful to identify the poor and bring them under the coverage of different programmes and also to measure changes.
In the recent past, attempts have been made to use household assets to classify households into various groups of socioeconomic status in a relative sense. Whether direct or indirect measures and indicators are used, it is important to know how well they are consistent in identifying the poor. This paper based on the outcome of kachha houses used for assessing level of achievement of various demographic indicators at a rural setting in the state of Bihar.