POVERTY

AS A
CHALLENGE
 WHAT IS POVERTY?

• Poverty is the lack of basic human needs

such as Nutrition, health care education,
clothing and shelter, because of the
inability to afford them.
• The two typical cases illustrate many dimensions of poverty.
• They show that poverty means hunger and lack of shelter.
• It also is a situation in which parents are not able to send their
children to school or a situation where sick people cannot afford
treatment.
• Poverty also means lack of clean water and sanitation facilities.
• It also means lack of a regular job at a minimum decent level.
• Above all it means living with a sense of helplessness.
• Poor people are in a situation in which they are ill- treated at almost
every place, in farms, factories, government offices, railway stations,
etc.,
• Obviously, nobody would like to live in poverty.
• Mahatma Gandhi always insisted that
India would be truly independent only
when the poorest of its people become
free of human suffering.
 Illiteracy level

Lack of
Lack of
access to
sanitation
healthcare

Lack of
Lack of
general
access to
resistance due
drinking water
to malnutrition

Lack of job
opportunity
 POVERTY LINE

• Poverty line is an imaginary line of

demarcation by which we can
understand that who are able to fulfil
their basic needs of life.
 POVERTY LINE VARY WITH TIME AND PLACE
• A person is considered poor if his or her income or consumption level falls below given
‘minimum level’ necessary to fulfil basic needs.
• What is necessary to satisfy basic needs is different at different times and in different
countries.
• Each country uses an imaginary line that is considered appropriate for its existing level of
development and its accepted minimum social norms.
• For example, a person not having a car in the USA may be considered poor. But, in India,
owning of a car is still considered a luxury.
• While determining the poverty line in India, a minimum level of food requirement, clothing,
footwear, fuel and light, educational and medical requirement, etc., are determined for
subsistence.
• These are calculated in terms of money required to consume them by
multiplying physical quantities by their prices in rupees.
• Such as consumption expenditure determines the poverty line. For the year
2011 – 2012, the poverty line for a person was fixed at ₹ 816 per month in
rural areas and ₹ 1,000 for the urban areas.
• The poverty line is estimated by conducting sample surveys that are carried
out by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO)
• There has been substantial decline in poverty ratios in India from 44.3% in
1993-94 to 21.9% in 2011-12.
• The proportion of people below poverty line further came down to about 26% in
2000.
• It this trend continues, people below poverty line may come down to 20% in the
next few years.
• Vulnerability to poverty is the extent to which a
community, person, society , country etc. can be
affected by the impact of the poverty.
• Women’s, less paid workers, beggars, people living in
less developed area, people living in slums, farmers (to
a little extent), farm laborers Schedule Cast People,
Schedule Tribe People are most vulnerable to poverty.
 INTER-STATE DISPARITIES
• The success rate of reducing poverty varies from state to state. Poverty is still a serious
problem in some of the states such as Odisha, Bihar, U.P., etc.,
• In 20 states and Union Territories, the poverty ratio is less than the national average. There is
a significant decline of poverty in Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir.
• Odisha and Bihar continue to be the two poorest states with poverty ratios of 32.6% and
33.7% respectively. Illiteracy, social backwardness, etc., are the causes.
• Kerala and Himachal Pradesh have the lowest poverty ratios of 7.1% and 8.1% respectively.
This is because of high agricultural growth and growth of tourism industry in these states.
• In Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, public distribution of food grains could have been
responsible for the improvement in the poverty level.
 GLOBAL POVERTY SCENARIO
• In China and Southeast Asian countries, poverty declined
substantially as a result of rapid economic growth and
massive investments in human resource development. 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 declined from 10 per cent in 2005 to 4 per cent in 2015.
 CAUSES OF POVERTY
There are various reasons for widespread poverty in India.
• Under British control, India had a low level of economic
development. New policies of the colonial government
ruined traditional handicrafts and discouraged development
of industries. like textiles. Low rate of growth and an
increase in population combined to make the growth rate of
per capita income very low. With the spread of irrigation and
the Green revolution, many job opportunities were created in
the agriculture sector. However, these were not enough to
absorb all the job seekers.
• Another feature of high poverty rates has been the huge
income inequalities. One of the major reasons for this is the
unequal distribution of land and other resources. In India,
lack of land resources has been one of the major causes of
poverty in India, but proper implementation of policy could
have improved the lives of millions of rural poor.
• Small farmers needed money to buy agricultural inputs like
seeds, fertilizer, pesticides etc. So, they used to borrow
money and were unable to repay the loan because of poverty.
 ANTI-POVERTY MEASURES

• The current anti-poverty scheme is divided into two parts.

• Promotion of economic growth
• Targeted anti-poverty programs
Since the eighties, India’s economic growth has been one of the fastest in the world. There is
a strong link between economic growth and poverty reduction. Some of the schemes which
are formulated to affect poverty directly or indirectly are:
• 1. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 – It aimed to provide
100 days of wage employment to every household to ensure livelihood security in rural areas.
It also aimed at sustainable development to address the cause of drought, deforestation and
soil erosion. One-third of the proposed jobs have been reserved for women.
• 2. In 1993, Prime Minister Rozgar Yojana (PMRY) was started. The main aim of the
programme is to create self-employment opportunities for educated unemployed youth in
rural areas and small towns.
• 3. In 1995, Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP) was launched. The aim of the
programme is to create self-employment opportunities in rural areas and small towns.
• 4. In 1999, Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY)
was launched. 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.
• 5. In 2000, the Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (PMGY)
was launched. Under this programme, additional central
assistance is given to states for basic services such as
primary health, primary education, rural shelter, rural drinking
water and rural electrification.
 THE CHALLENGES AHEAD
• In India, Poverty has certainly declined in India, but it still
remains India’s most compelling challenge.
• Poverty reduction is expected to make better progress in the
next ten to fifteen years.
• This can be achieved by higher economic growth, increasing
stress on universal free elementary education, declining
population growth, increasing empowerment of the women
and the economically weaker sections of society.