The purpose of this research done in India is to locate what is urban about poverty and inequality. An effort was made to find out the patterns, trends, or aspects of poverty and inequality that are particular to the urban areas and their explanations. How do income- and expenditure-based poverty measures account for these needs? Is income poverty the primary determinant of vulnerability? Finally, what are the implications of these particularities in framing policy responses? In the analyses of the particularity of urban poverty, it was observed that, poor quality and often insecure, hazardous, and overcrowded housing, inadequate provision of public infrastructure, inadequate provision of basic services etc,.were to be blamed for urban poverty and resultant difficulties in the inadequate urban lives. In subsequent paragraphs, focus was also given on two of many possible sectors: affordable and adequate housing, and access to water and sanitation. The intentions of the study were is to trace current levels of access, quality and sustainability within each sector. This was purposely made to examine the relationship between levels of access and income poverty, and to assess the particular urban nature of this relationship. Having done so, the paper defined two key patterns that perhaps underlie the empirics found in the issue: distinct approaches to urban development and basic services in urban policy and governance, and illegality as a barrier to access.

In India, the line is a money metric measure based mainly on calorie norms, and  to measure the extent and incidence of poverty where the number of the poor expressed as a Headcount Ratio (HCR). Caloric thresholds used are based on age-sex-occupation specific nutritional norms from the 1971 census (P. Sen, 2005b). These norms are meant to indicate socially acceptable standards of the minimum subsistence needs of an average person. In 1973–74, they were fixed to determine expenditures needed to consume 2,400 Kcal and 2,100 Kcal for rural and urban areas respectively.