AMITY LAW SCHOOL

LAW POVERTY AND DEVELOPMENT

VARIOUS DIMENSION OF POVERTY
BY ARUN YADAV
B.A,L.L.B(H)
SECTION-D
ENROLLMENT NO:A11911115086
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to
my teacher Ms Kanika who gave me the golden
opportunity to do this wonderful project on various
dimension of poverty which helped me in doing a lot of
Research and i came to know about so many new things I
am really thankful to them.

Secondly i would also like to thank my parents and friends

who helped me a lot in finalizing this project within the
limited time frame.
 Content
Introduction

Causes of Poverty in India

Dimension of poverty

Education

Low household income

Health

Standard of living

Unemployment

Conclusion
 Introduction
There are many ways of defining and estimating poverty in a country, such as
India. For example, the Tendulkar Committee in India based its calculations of
subsistence level on the requirement of cereal, pulses, milk, edible oil, non-
vegetarian items, vegetables, fresh fruits, dry fruits, sugar, salt & spices, other
food, fuel, clothing, footwear, education, medical (non-institutional and
institutional), entertainment, personal & toilet goods, other goods, other services
and durables. Hence, as per Tendulkar Committee methodology, the national
poverty line (in Rs per capita per month) for the year 2011-12 was calculated at
Rs 816 for rural areas and Rs 1000 for urban areas. Using this methodology, the
National Sample Survey Organisation estimated poverty at 21.9% of the
population (269 million) in 2011-12. That means in the category of poor fell the
people whose daily income was less than Rs 27 a day in villages and Rs 33 a
day in cities. On the other hand, the subsequent Rangarajan Committee pegged
the poverty line at Rs 32 in rural areas and Rs 47 in urban areas. On this basis,
the number of poor living below the poverty line in India in 2011-2012 was
revised to 29.5% of the population (363 million).
In contrast, the international poverty line as updated in October 2015 by the
World Bank stands at US$1.90 per day (2011 PPP). In 2011, 21.2% of the total
population in India was estimated to be living below this poverty line, as per the
World Bank data.
Household expenditure is considered for calculating the poverty count in India. In
this method, the purchasing power of people for buying food and some essential
non-food items is taken into account. In the last few years, though the condition in
cities continues to be more or less the same, the government welfare programmes
have really helped reduce the incidence of poverty in rural India. Schemes such as
MGNREGS have resulted in a decrease in the poverty in rural areas at a faster pace
than their urban counterparts
 Causes of Poverty in India
High population growth rate is one of major reasons of poverty in India. This
further leads to high level of illiteracy, poor health care facilities and lack of access
to financial resources. Also, high population growth affects the per capita income
and makes per capita income even lower. It is expected that population in India
will reach 1.5 billion by 2026 and then India will be the largest nation in the world.
But India’s economy is not growing at the same pace. This means shortage of jobs.
For this much population, near about 20 million new jobs would be required.
Number of poor will keep on increasing if such a big number of jobs won’t be
created.
Ever increasing prices of even basic commodities is another reason of poverty. A
person below the poverty line finds it difficult to survive. Caste system and
unequal distribution of income and resources is another reason of poverty in India.
Apart from all these, unskilled workers are paid very low in spite of hard work
they put daily. The problem lies with the unorganized sector as owners do not
bother the way their workers live and the amount they earn. Their area of concern
is just cost-cutting and more profit. Because of the number of workers looking for
a job is higher than the jobs available, unskilled workers have no other option but
to work for less money. The government should really find a way to impose
minimum wage standards for these workers. At the same time, the government
should ensure that this is implemented well.
 Dimension of poverty

There are 5 dimension of Poverty:

1. household income
2. education
3. health
4. Inadequate living standard
5. Unemployment

Low household income

The 20th percentile equivalised gross weekly household income is used as a
threshold that denotes ‘low household income’. The 20th percentile for household
income is the dollar amount that divides households into the 20 percent of
households that have an income below this dollar amount and the 80 percent that
have an income higher than this dollar amount. Household income is ‘equivalised’,
which means the dollar amounts have been adjusted based on the number of adults
and age and number of children in the household.

The 20th percentile is a useful measure for illustrating the income level below
which households’ real-life consumption possibilities will be severely limited,
largely because meeting accommodation costs requires a large proportion of their
weekly income. The 20th percentile income threshold indicates that the actual
living conditions that households will experience are likely to be less than adequate
. The 20th percentile equivalised gross weekly household income is most sensitive
to the employment rate, and hours worked, and to a lesser degree hourly wage (the
wage component having more influence towards the top end of the income
distribution).
 Education

Education in India means the process of teaching, learning, and training of human
capital in schools and colleges. This improves and increases knowledge and results in
skill development hence enhancing the quality of the human capital. Our government
has always valued the importance of education in India and this is reflected in our
economic policies.

Growth in Government Expenditure on Education

There are two areas where government expresses there expenditure.

 As a percentage of total government expenditure.

 As a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The percentage of expenditure on education out of total government expenditure is
the indicator of the importance of education in the scheme of expenses before the
government. The commitment level towards the development of education in our
country can be shown by the percentage of expenditure done on education out of total
GDP.

During 1952-2010, the percentage of total education expenditure out of total

government expenditure increased from 7.92% to 11.10%. At the same time, the
percentage of GDP of the country increased from 0.64% to 3.25%. As the
expenditure on education was not constant during that time, the growth of country
was irregular in that era.

Expenditure on Elementary Education in India

In comparison to expenditure done on elementary education and higher education,
the major share was grabbed by elementary education. On the contrary, expenditure
per student on higher education was higher than that of elementary education.

As the expansion of school education is going on, we need more trained teachers who
have studied at educational institutes. Therefore, expenditure on all levels of
education should increase. Himachal Pradesh spends Rs. 2005 as per capita education
expenditure as compared to Bihar which spends Rs. 515. This results in differences
of educational opportunities between states.
 Health
As the world’s second-most-populous country and one of its fastest-growing
economies, India faces both unique challenges and unprecedented opportunities in
the sphere of public health.

For more than a decade, India has experienced record-breaking economic growth
that has been accompanied by significant reductions in poverty. According to the
World Bank, infant mortality in India fell from 66 to 38 per 1,000 live births from
2000 to 2015. Life expectancy at birth has increased from 63 to 68 years, and the
maternal mortality ratio has fallen from 374 to 174 per 100,000 live births over the
same period.

India also has dynamic pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries; world-class

scientists, including a burgeoning clinical trials industry; and leading hospitals that
attract foreign patients and treat its better-off citizens.

Yet Indian government and public health officials agree that the country also faces
persistent and daunting public health challenges, particularly for the poor. These
include child undernutrition and low birth weights that often lead to premature
death or lifelong health problems; high rates of neonatal and maternal mortality;
growth in noncommunicable diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and tobacco use,
leading to cancer and other diseases; and high rates of road traffic accidents that
result in injuries and deaths.

As the Indian government strives to provide comprehensive health coverage for all,
the country’s rapidly developing health system remains an area of concern. There
are disparities in health and health care systems between poorer and richer states
and underfunded health care systems that in many cases are inefficiently run and
underregulated. New government-financed health insurance programs are
increasing coverage, but insurance remains limited.

Public and private health systems are placing huge demands on the country’s
capacity to train exceptional health leaders and professionals. Rising to meet these
challenges, the people of India have an opportunity to have a major influence on
their own future health and on the future of public health and medical efforts
globally.
 Standard of living
Standard of living’ refers to the necessaries, comforts and luxuries which a person
is accustomed to enjoy.

In other words, standard of living of the people means the quantity and quality of
their consumption.

if a person satisfies some wants in a particular manner long enough, they recur and
become habits.

He must have those commodities and services; over and over again otherwise he
would not feel happy. Such things become his daily requirements and constitute
what has been called his standard of living. They include his food, dress, house,
entertainments, etc. Standard of living is, in short, his mode of living.

The standard of living of a person is not determined only by himself or according

to his own whims and desires. He has also to consider what society expects of him.
It is thus a compromise between what he himself likes and what the society
expects.

Factors Determining Standard of Living in a Country

A major objective of the government of a country is to provide good living to i s
people. But different countries of the world provide different levels of living to
their people. In fact, there are marked inequalities in the standards of living of the
people in different countries of the world. On the one hand, there are advanced
countries like the U.K., the U.S.A., Canada and the countries of Western Europe
where standards of living are very high. Therefore, these countries have been
called affluent societies.

On the other hand, there are under-developed countries like India, Pakistan, China,
Burma, etc., where standard of living of the people is extremely low. The extent of
differences in the levels of living between the U.S.A. and India can be known from
the comparison of per capita income in both countries as it is the per capita income
on which the standard of living of a people primarily depends. According to the
latest 1984 World Development Report, the per capita income of the U.S.A. is 3.16
dollars, while in India the per capita income is only 260 U.S. dollars, i.e. one
fiftieth of that of the U.S.A.
 Unemployment

Most indicators of the Indian economy in recent months confirm that it is slowing.
There is also a consensus that the economic slowdown is largely a result of
weakening demand, most notably in rural areas. While slowing demand has
obviously affected the overall growth rate, it has also contributed to declining
availability of jobs in an economy already struggling with the spectre of jobless
growth.
How serious is the employment problem in India? Official economists and
politicians shrug off any such idea of jobless growth with claims of jobs having
been created during the previous term of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
government. However, evidence from multiple sources points to a far more serious
crisis of employment generation than is accepted.
The most authoritative source on employment in the country remains the
employment-unemployment surveys of the National Sample Survey Office
(NSSO). The latest in this series is the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the
results of which were withheld by the NDA government until the Lok Sabha
elections were over. These were released soon after the incumbent NDA won the
election. Like most other data, the government tried to tarnish the credibility of the
surveys that had been initiated by it and were approved by an expert committee on
this matter at several levels. It is important to reiterate that the PLFS estimates are
fully comparable to the estimates of employment-unemployment based on NSSO
surveys earlier.
 Conclusion
poverty is one of the major issues in the world that need to be address quickly in the poorest
villages in which thousands of people are dying, and most of these people are children’s. We
have learned that poverty refers to the condition of not having the means to afford basic human
needs such as clean water, nutrition, healthcare, clothing, food, and a place to live, poverty is a
deadly issue that’s killing our population slow and that we as the affected ones need to take
actions against it. We have also learned that poverty that affect mostly poor people, because of
the little resources they have, this means that poverty is an issue that’s harming poor people that
want to get out of poverty, but they can’t because they don’t have the support of rich people.
Even though there are a lot of people trying to stop poverty, it is impossible to stop it without the
support of rich countries, this is because to fight poverty we have to fight it with a lot of money
and their only a few countries that could support us with this need. Something else that we have
learned is that poverty today is looking worst then when it first started; millions of kids are living
on piles of trash dying of starvation. The reason there are so many people living in poverty is
because millions of other people are spending money in things they don’t need. (Articlewave)
this leads us to the effects of this issue that are deadly illnesses that make people fall and give up
on their life, we learned that poverty lead people to abuse of drugs or to abuse of other people.
And even though many people support the idea of helping those people who live in poverty,
there are also those that don’t support people who are trying to stop poverty. And the most
important thing that we have all learned from this research is that poverty can be stop, but to be
able to stop it we must all support each other, with no hate or anything that could harm us. So for
those that are willing to help don’t help because you feel pressure, do it because you want to and
your heart is telling you to do it.
 BIBLOGRAPHY
www.lawoctopus.com
www.acakdemia.com
www.wikipedia.com