Identification of urban poor households is a necessary condition for more effectively targeting the beneficiaries under various poverty alleviation programmes being implemented by the Central and the State Governments. Programmes of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, such as the Swarna Jayanti Shahri Rozgar Yojna (SJSRY) for Livelihoods, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) for services and the more recent ones like Rajiv Awas Yojna (RAY) for housing a slum free India, along with national programmes such as food security, aim to ensure nutrition, livelihoods and decent shelter and services for the urban poor. In order to be able to plan and design appropriate interventions, and to ensure their targeted delivery, it is not enough only to know who the poor are and where they live, it is also important to know the precise nature of the vulnerability or deprivation that they face, as also the extent of such deprivation, both absolute and relative. This is the report of the expert group to recommended the detailed methodology for the identification of families living below poverty line in the urban areas