POVERTY AS CHALLENGE

Poverty- Explanation
• Poverty means hunger and lack of shelter: and lack of other essential needs like
education, health, etc.,
• it means living with a sense of helplessness
• Poor people are ill treated
• One of the biggest challenges of independent India has been to bring millions of its
people out of poverty.
• Mahatma Gandhi always insisted that India would be truly independent only when the
poorest of its people become free of human suffering.
Poverty as seen by social scientists
• Social Scientists use many indicators to look at Poverty
• Income and Consumption levels are the most common indicators
• But now poverty is looked through other social indicators like illiteracy level, lack of
general resistance due to malnutrition, lack of access to healthcare, lack of job
opportunities, lack of access to safe drinking water, sanitation etc.
• Social exclusion
o Poverty must be seen in terms of the poor having to live only in a poor
surrounding with other poor people, excluded from enjoying social equality of
better-off people in better surroundings
o It can be both a cause as well as a consequence of poverty
o it is a process through which individuals or groups are excluded from facilities,
benefits, and opportunities that others (their “betters”) enjoy
o Ex.- Caste System
• Vulnerability
o It is a measure which describes the greater probability of a group or an
individual of becoming, or remaining, poor in the coming years.
o Vulnerability describes the greater probability of being more adversely affected
than other people when bad times come for everybody, whether a flood or an
earthquake or simply a fall in the availability of jobs
Poverty Line
• A person is considered poor if his or her income or consumption level falls below a
given “minimum level” necessary to fulfill the basic needs.
• The basic needs differ according to time and nation.
• Each country uses an imaginary line that is considered appropriate for its existing level
of development and its accepted minimum social norms
• In India, Poverty line is measured as per the calorie requirement needed. The accepted
average calorie requirement in India is 2400 calories per person per day in rural areas
and 2100 calories per person per day in urban areas. As rural people engage in more
physical work, the calorie requirement is higher.
 • On the basis of these calculations, for the year 2011-12, the poverty line for a person
was fixed at Rs.816 per month for rural areas and Rs.1000 for urban areas. Despite
less calorie requirement, the higher amount is fixed for urban areas, as the price of
essential things are higher in urban areas.
• National Sample Survey Organisation(NSSO) is responsible in India to fix and revise
the poverty line periodically.
• The world bank use a uniform Poverty line of $1.90 per person per day to compare
nations.
Poverty Estimates
• Poverty in India is continuously declining
• From 45% in 1993-94, it declined to 22% in 2011-12
• The number of poor declined from 407 million in 2004–05 to 270 million in 2011–12
Vulnerable Groups
• The proportion of poverty is different among various social and economic groups
• Members of Schedule Tribes and Schedule Castes are vulnerable to become poor.
• Although the average poverty in India is 22%, 43% of Schedule Tribes are poor and
29% of Schedule Caste people are poor.
• Similarly casual workers of both rural and urban areas are vulnerable to become poor.
• 34% of the casual labours are poor.
• Among poor, the most sufferers are women, elderly people, female infants and
disables
Inter-State Disparities
• The proportion of poor people is not the same in every state.
• States like Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Odisha had above all
India poverty level.
• Along with rural poverty, urban poverty is also high in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh,
Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
• There has been a significant decline in poverty in Kerala, Maharashtra, Andhra
Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and West Bengal.
• Reduction of poverty
o Punjab and Haryana- Agriculture development
o Kerala- Human Resource Development
o Bengal- Land reform measures
o Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu- Public Distribution System
Global Poverty Scenario
• World Bank defined poverty line as $1.90 per person per day to compare various
countries
• Although there has been a substantial reduction in global poverty, it is marked with
great regional differences.
 • Poverty declined substantially in China and other East Asian Countries because of
rapid economic growth and massive investments in human resource development.
• Number of poor in China has come down from 88.3 per cent in 1981 to 14.7 per cent
in 2008 to 0.7 per cent in 2015.
• In South Asian countries, the decline in poverty also is rapid 34 per cent in 2005 to
16.2 per cent in 2013.
• In Sub-Saharan Africa, poverty declined from 51 per cent in 2005 to 41 per cent in
2015.
• In Latin America, the ratio of poverty has also declined from 10 per cent in 2005 to 4
per cent in 2015
• Poverty has also resurfaced in some of the former socialist countries like Russia,
where officially it was non-existent earlier.
• The new sustainable development goals of the United Nations (UN) proposes ending
poverty of all types by 2030.
Causes of Poverty in India
• British Rule
o Ruined traditional handicrafts and discouraged development of industries like
textiles.
o Economic Development was very low
o Populaltion growth was high
o Hence, growth rate of per capita income very low.
o This perpetuated the cycle of poverty.
• Unemployment
o Even after independence, the development in agriculture was limited to
particular pockets
o The industrial sector development was not enough to provide jobs for all the job
seekers
o Unable to find jobs, people were forced to work in unorganised sector and thus
living in slums of the cities.
• Income inequalities
o Many policies like Land Reforms which is aimed to redistribute asserts of rural
areas were proposed but unable to implement them properly made poverty to be
continued in rural areas.
• Socio-Cultural Reasons
o To fulfil social obligations and observe religious ceremonies, people in India,
including the very poor, spend a lot of money which will stop them from
coming out of poverty
• Economic Factors
o Small farmers and other marginal people suffer from a high level of
indebtedness which is a cause and consequence of poverty
Anti-Poverty Measures
The current anti-poverty strategy of the government is based broadly on two planks
1. Promotion of economic growth
• Poverty level remain unchanged as 45% from independence to 1980s as the
economic growth of the country was merely 3.5% a year.
• But as the growth level started touching 6% a year, poverty level also started
declining.
• Economic growth widens opportunities and provides the resources needed to invest
in human development.
• However, the poor may not be able to take direct advantage of the opportunities
created by economic growth.
• Also, as the growth in the agriculture sector is low, rural poverty is still a problem
to solve
2. Targeted anti-poverty programmes
• Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 aims to
provide 100 days of wage employment to every household to ensure livelihood
security in rural areas.
• Prime Minister Rozgar Yojana (PMRY) is another scheme which was started in
1993. The aim of the programme is to create self-employment opportunities for
educated unemployed youth in rural areas and small towns.
• Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP) was launched in 1995. The aim
of the programme is to create self-employment opportunities in rural areas and
small towns.
• Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) was launched in 1999. The
programme aims at bringing the assisted poor families above the poverty line by
organising them into self-help groups through a mix of bank credit and government
subsidy.
• Under the Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (PMGY) launched in 2000,
additional central assistance is given to states for basic services such as primary
health, primary education, rural shelter, rural drinking water and rural
electrification.
• Less effective of the programmes is the lack of proper implementation and right
targeting.
The Challenges Ahead
• Wide disparities between rural and urban and among various states
• Certain social and economic groups are vulnerable to poverty.
• Due to high economic growth, growth of universal primary education, decrease in the
population growth rate and increase in women empowerment, poverty rate started
declining.
• We need to redefine poverty from minimum level to reasonable level of living.
• Many scholars advocate that we must broaden the concept into human poverty.
• The target will move on for many of the bigger challenges that still remain: providing
health care, education, and job security for all, and achieving gender equality and
dignity for the poor