Chronically poor people are those who experience deprivation over many years, often over their entire lives, and who sometimes pass poverty on to their children. In this study poverty has been measured as the low level of satisfaction of the ten basic needs and the underutilization of material and non material resources. The research has been carried out in Wanduressa village established by settling down the Rodiya community in 1959 and 1961. This study was done as close as possible to the base research of Professor Ratnapala (1979) to compare the satisfaction level for the ten basic needs. The result indicates that over the time the community level satisfaction for ten basic needs has been increased by 54.88 per cent. According to the normalized satisfaction level index constructed in the research, 78 per cent households have obtained a satisfaction level above 0.5. Underutilization of the economic factors of the community has also been reduced over the time. Poverty alleviation programmes, awareness programmes and the effort taken by the households to reduce their separation from the main stream communities are the main causes to reduce the poverty over the time. Multiple Linear Regression analysis was carried out to see the relationship between the household level satisfaction index for ten basic needs and demographic and economic factors. It shows that there is a significant relationship between the satisfaction level and skills, primary occupation and the gender of the household head.

No content to view in Sinhala

No content to view in Tamil