Our primary interest in this sector, however, is from the perspective of poverty which remains
widespread despite significant progress in reducing it—the country is still estimated to have a
third of the world's poor. According to some estimates 32.7% of the population is below the
international poverty line of US$ 1.25 per day (PPP) while 68.7% live on less than US$ 2 per
day (World Bank 2011)
1
. A key aspect of poverty is its incidence which is rural and
concentrated among agricultural labour. Thus, according to the Indian Planning Commission,
in the year 2009-10 more than 1 in 3 of the rural population was poor (33.8%) whereas the
figure for urban areas was about 1 in 5 (20.9%).Equally important for our analysis, nearly
50% of agricultural labourers were below the poverty line in rural areas (GoI 2012)
of climate change and also its regional incidence