Poverty refers to a state in which an individual is unable to fulfill even the basic necessities of life. Poverty in India has been studied from two points: urban and rural.
• In urban areas, poor people include push cart vendors, street cobblers, rag pickers, beggars etc… #they possess few assets.
# They reside in kutcha hutments with walls made of baked mud and roofs made of grass, thatch, bamboo and wood.
# The poorest of them do not even have such dwellings.
# The urban poor are largely the overflow of the rural poor who had migrated to urban was in search of alternative employment and livelihood.
• In Rural Areas, poor people include landless agriculture laborers, cultivators with very small landholdings, landless engaged in a variety of non-agriculture jobs or tenant cultivators with small land holding.
# may of the rural people are landless. Even waste land.
# Many rural people do not get to have even two meals a clay.
COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF POOR PEOPLE
1. Hunger, starvation and malnutrition: starvation and hunger are the basic problems of the poorest households. Malnutrition is alarmingly high among the poor.
2. Poor health: they are generally physically week due to ill health, disability or serious illness. Their children are less likely to survive or be born healthy.
3. Limited economic opportunity: they have very limited economic opportunity due to lack of literacy and skills. So, they face unstable employment. They are not able to negotiate their legal wages from employers and are exploited.
4. Dept trap: they borrow from money lenders, who charge high rates of interest that push them into chronic indebtedness.
5. Lack of facilities of electricity and water: most poor household do not have access electricity. Their primary cocking fuel is firewood and cow dung cake. A large section of poor people do not even have access to safe drinking water.
6. Gender inequality: gender inequality prevails within the family in regards to participation of gainful employment, education and in decisionmaking
RELATIVE AND ABSOLUTE POVERTY
Relative poverty refers to poverty of people, in comparison to other people, regions or nation.
Absolute poverty refers to the total number people living below poverty time according to absolute measure; around 22% of India’s population is below poverty India.
POVERTY LINE
Poverty line is a cut-off point an the line of distribution, which usually divides the population of the country as poor and non-poor.Line is used to measure the extent of poverty in a country .
# People having income below the poverty line are called “poor”
# People with income above poverty line are called “non-poor”.
In India, ” monthly per capita expenditure or MPCE” method is used to determine the poverty line.
According to this method, monetary value (per capita expenditure) of the minimum calorie intake is calculated.
Minimum calorie intake: the planning commission has defined poverty line on the basis of recommended nutritional requirement of 2400 calories per person per day for rural area and 2100 calories per person per day in urban areas. Higher calories intake has been fixed for rural areas because the rural worker has to do greater physical work as compared to the urban worker.
Poverty LINE PRE INDEPENDENCE
In the Pre-independent India, Dadabhai Naoroji was the first person to discuss the concept of Poverty Line.
He used the Jail Cost of Living’ to calculate the poverty line.
He used the menu for a prisoner and used appropriate prevailing prices, to arrive at the cost of consumption of an adult prisoner.
He termed this consumption cost as ‘jail cost of living’.
As only adults stay in jail, he divided the population into two parts: o
He assumed that one-third of total population consist of children. One-half of them (i.e. 1/2 of 1/3 1/6) consumed very little, while the other half (i.e. 1/2 of 1/3 = 1/6) Consumed half of the adult diet. consume full diet.
In Post-independent India, there have been several attempts to identify the number of poor in the country.
In 1962, the Planning Commission formed a Study Group.
In 1979, Task Force on Projections of Minimum Needs and Effective Consumption Demand was formed.In 1989, an ‘Expert Group’ was constituted for the same purpose.
Besides these bodies, many individual economists have also attempted to develop such a mechanism.
CATEGORIES OF POOR
Chronic poor: in includes people who are always poor and those who are usually poor.
Transient poor: transient poor may be classified as churning poor (who regularly move in and out of poverty, like small farmer) and occasionally poor (who are rich most of the time and poor sometimes).
Non-poor: they are never poor.
THE NUMBER OF POOR IN INDIA
When the number of poor is estimated as the proportion of people below the poverty line, it is known as ‘head count ratio’.
• The official data on poverty is made available to the public by the planning commission.
• It is estimate on the basis of consumption expenditure data collected by the national sample survey organization (LASSO).
NUMBER AND PROPORTION OF PEOPLE BELOW POVERTY LINE
• Number of people below poverty line: in 1973-74, 320 million were below the poverty line. In 2011-12, this number came down to 270 million. • Proportion of people below poverty Iine:in terms of proportion, in 1973-74, 55% of the total population was below the poverty line and more than 80% poor lived in villages. In 2011-12, it has fallen to 22% still 75% poor live in villages.
BRITISH RULE: Adverse effect on living standard of Indians.
1. British government systematically destroyed Indian industries. The primary motive behind the deindustrialization was two-fold:
(a) To get raw materials (like cotton, jute, etc) from India at cheap rates to be used by upcoming modern industries in Britain.
(b) To sell finished products (like cotton cloth) of British industries In Indian market at higher prices.
2. more than 70% of Indians were engaged in agriculture throughout the British raj period. British policies raised rural taxes , which enable merchants and money leaders to become large land owners.
3. Under the British rule, Indian began to export food grains . it was responsible for frequent famines and as many as 26 million people died in famines between 1875 and 1900.
Agriculture: still the principle means livelihood
In Indian , agriculture is still the principle means of livelihood and land is the primary asset of rural people.
• low success rate of land ceiling : since independence . the government has opted to redistribute land through land ceiling land ceiling refers to fixing the specified limit of land , which could be owned by an individual . beyond the specified limit of land , which could be owned by an individual . beyond the specified limit , all land belonging to a particular person would be taken over by the government and will be allotted to the landless cultivators and small farmers however , this move was successful only to a limited extent because :
# large sections of agricultural workers were not able to farm the small holdings due to lack of money or skills; and #land holdings were to small to be viable. farmers
• majority of small and marginal farmers
• A large section of the rural small farmers: # the land that they have is generally less fertile and dependent in rains. # their survival depends on subsistence agriculture is self-sufficient farming farmers focus on growing enough food to feed themselves and their families .
• Fragmentation of land holdings: with the rapid growth of population and without alternative sources of employment , the per-head availability of land for cultivation has steadily declined.
#it has led to fragmentation of land holdings .
# the income from these small land holdings is not sufficient to meet the family’s basic requirements. It has led to distress among the farmers.
CAUSES OF POVERTY
1. Population explosion: rapid growth of population, particularly among the poor ,is responsible for problem of poverty in the country .
2. Low level of economic development : the Indian economy is highly underdeveloped due to relative backwardness of agriculture and industrial sectors. Due to widespread bottlenecks in infrastructural facilities .
3. Poor state of agriculture : agriculture in India has continued to be backward due to use of primitive methods of production and fragmented small land holdings. As a result , labor and land productivity continue to be low In India
4. High illiteracy rate : the weaker sections of society of society have to take up low paid jobs due to lack of knowledge . the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes are not able to participate in the emerging employment opportunities .
5. High level of unemployment: the urban poor in India are largely the overflow of the rural poor who migrate to urban areas In search of employment and a livelihood.
# Industrialization has not been able to absorb all these people.
# Most of the urban poor are either unemployment or temporarily employed as casual laborers.
# Such casual laborers are among the most vulnerable in society as they have limited skills, with no job security, no assets and no surplus to sustain them. So, poverty is closely related to nature of employment.
6. High level of indebtedness :unemployment or under employment and the casual nature of works compels people to borrow money, that too at higher interest rates.
7. Inequality of income: the unequal distribution of income and assert has also led to the persistence of poverty in India.
GOVERNMENT APPROACH TO REMOVE POVERTY
In all the five year plans and policies , the maximum emphasis has been given on poverty alleviation and government has stressed the need for various strategies for the same.
1. Growth -oriented approach: this approach was initiated from the first five year plan1951-56. This approach is based on an expectation that affect of economic growth (rapid increase in GDP and per capita income) would spread to all sections of the society and will trickle down to the poor sections also.
(i) Population growth resulted in a very low growth in per capita incomes .
(ii) Green revoluation intensified the disparities regionally and between large and small farmers.
(iii) There was unwillingness and inability to redistribute land. (iv) The benefits of economic growth did not trickle crown to the poor.
2. Poverty alleviation programmes: this second approach has been initiated from the third five year plan and progressively enlarged since then. The government has introduced a variety of programmes for reduction of poverty
3. Minimum needs programme: this approach has been initiated from the fifth five year plan. It aims to provide minimum basic amenities to the people .
• India was among the pioneers in the world to visualize that people’s living standard could be improve through public expenditure on social consumption needs (food grains at subsidies rates, education , health , water supply and sanitation).
• Programs under this are expected to supplement the consumption of the poor . create employment opportunities and bring improvements in health and education .
• Three major programmes that aim at improving the food and nutritional status of the poor are :
- Public distribution system
- Integrated child development scheme
- Midday meal scheme.
SELF – EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMMES
1. Rural employment generation programme (REGP): This programme was started by the government to create self- employment opportunities in the rural areas and small towns.
• It was employed by khadi and village industries commission.
• Under this programme , one could get financial assistance in the from of bank loans to set up small industries .
2. Prime minister’s rozgar yojana (PMRY) : under this programme , the educated unemployed from low income families in rural and urban areas were given financial help to set up small industries.
• PMRY attempted to generate employment by setting up 7 lakh microenterprises during the English plan (1992-97). • By 2003-04, 3 million people get employment under this scheme .
3. Swarna jayanti shahri rozgra yojana (SJSRY) : SJSRY mainly aims at creating employment opportunities for both self-employment and wage employment in urban areas.
• This programme seeks to provide gainful employment through encouraging the setting up self-employment ventures or provision of wage employment.
3. Swarna jayanti shahri rozgra yojana (SJSRY) : SJSRY mainly aims at creating employment opportunities for both self-employment and wage employment in urban areas.
- This programme seeks to provide gainful employment through encouraging the setting up self-employment ventures or provision of wage employment.
- It is a centrally sponsored scheme, which is funded on 75:25 bases, between the centre and the states.
- Earlier, financial assistance was given to families or individuals under under the self-employment programmes.
- However , the government changed this approach since the 1990s through the programe ” swaranjyanti gram swarozgar yojana”.
4. Swaranjayanti gram swarozgar yojana (SGSY): SGSY aims at promoting microenter prises and to bring the assisted poor families (swarozgaris) above the poverty line, by organizing them into self-help groups (SHGs).
- People who wish to benefit from this scheme, are encouraged to from self-help groups(SHG)
- initially they are encourage to save some money and lend among themselves as small loans.
- Later, through banks, the government provides partial financial assistance to SHG’s , which then decide , whom the loan is to be given, for selfemployment activities .
WAGE EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMMES
1. sampoorna grameen rozgar yojana (SGRY): the scheme aims to provide additional and supplementary wage employment by undertaking labour intensive work, thereby providing food security and increasing levels.
- Wages were paid as a combination of food grains and cash.
- The scheme of SGRY is open to all rural poor who need wage employment and desire to do manual and unskilled work in and around their village or habitat.
2. National food for work programme (NFFWP) : this programme was lounched in 2004 with the objective of intensifying the generation of supplymentary wage employment .
• NFFWP was initially implemented in 150 most backward districts of the country , to provide additional resources apart from the resources available under SGRY.
• The programme was implemented as a100% centrally sponsored scheme.
• This programme was incorporated in Mahatma Gandhi national rural employment guarantee act (MANREGA) in 2005. •
MANREGA aims at enhancing the livelihood security of people in rural areas by guaranteeing 100 days of wage —employment in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members’ voluntree to do unskilled manual work.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF POVERTY ALLEVIATION PROGRAMMES
1. Lack of resources: as compared to the magnitude of poverty, the amount of resources allocated or these programmes is not sufficient.
2. Unequal distribution of assets: due to unequal distribution of land and other assets, the benefits from poverty alleviation programmes have been appropriated by the non —poor.
3. Improper implementation:these programmes depend mainly on government and bank officials for their implementation. However,corruption, lack of training, pressure from local leaders and non-participation of local level institution resulted in improper implementation of the programme.
4. Lack of infrastructure: there was lack of infrastructural facilities, such as schools, road power, telecom, it services, training institutions, etc. in the poverty stricken areas.
5. Lack of active participation of poor people: high growth rate alone is insufficient to reduce poverty. In fact there is a need for active participation of the poor for effective implementation of poverty alleviation programmes. Poverty can effectively be eradicated only when the poor start contributing to growth by their active involvement in the growth process. This is possible though a process of social mobilization, encouraging poor people to participates and get them empowered.
wonderful effort.appreciable