'Income Poverty and Beyond' emphasizes the need to go beyond the conventional definition of poverty and look at the various human aspects of the problem. Eminent social scientists such as Suresh Tendulkar, Abusaleh Shariff, R. Radhakrishna, M. S. S. Meenakshisundaram, Seeta K. Prabhu, Ravi Srivastava and the editors, Raja J. Chelliah and R. Sudarshan, take a comprehensive view of poverty to include the concept of human poverty, seen as the 'the denial of opportunities and choices most basic to human development'. Special care has been taken to make the information and analysis accessible to the general reader.

Using the latest available data for India as well as edited versions of papers commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for a South-Asia poverty monitor, the broad conclusion that has emerged is that more public action is needed to counter the high prevalence of human poverty. Therefore, current measures to reduce income-poverty, including high rates of economic growth, are not sufficient.

The first two chapters dwell on the concept of income-poverty, interstate and intergroup disparities and poverty trends in India over the decade 1983–94. This is followed by an examination of human development in rural India, availability of food to the poor, various programmes aimed at removing poverty, the indices of human poverty and public financing of social services, human priority expenditures, and human expenditure ratios for the Indian states. The perceptions of the poor in assessing their own poverty and in developing policies to improve their status are discussed, and an epilogue appeals to the national and international community to take serious note of human poverty in the midst of which we all live.