This review attempts to assess and monitor poverty in Sri Lanka in a systematic manner is a recent activity spanning over two decades. The gain in momentum for information for the purposes of anti-poverty policy formulation appears largely to be due to the adoption of structural adjustment policies in the 1970s. The advocacy to reallocate state resources from welfare-oriented programmes to growth promotion programmes led to the reduction in welfare-oriented expenditure.The aim of this review is to enhance the existing data collecting system of poverty monitoring within existing structures at minimum additional costs, to ensure sustainability of these efforts.