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MAINS
: Sample Notes For General Studies POVERTY WHY ARE WE STUDYING Development promises to all its citizens the equality of opportunities, choices and changes. Poverty is the greatest hurdle to development, thereby needing certain structural, institutional and attitudinal changes to ensure a sustainable development. UN High Level Panel on threats, challenges and change" identified extreme poverty and infectious diseases as threats in themselves and also make emergence of other threats including civil wars and environment degradation. IMPORTANT EVENTS Poverty can be defined as a social phenomenon in which a section of society is unable to fulfill even its basic necessities of life. HDR (1997) defines poverty as denial of opportunity to lead a long, healthy and creative life, and to enjoy a descent standard of living, freedom, dignity, self-respect and respect of others. Absolute and Relative Poverty: Absolute poverty is measured in terms of certain fixed criteria e.g. calorie consumption in India. Relative poverty is measured by estimating income distribution of population in different groups and then a comparison is made between top 5-10% with bottom 5-10%. HOW POVERTY LINE IN INDIA IS MEASURED It is defined as the level of private consumption expenditure which ensures a food basket that would supply the required amount of calories. Per capita daily calorific minimum is defined as 2400 Kcal for rural areas and 2100 Kcal for urban areas. Minimum physical quantities of cereals, pulses, milk etc. are determined for a subsistence level and then price quotations of the physical quantities are converted into monetary terms. Aggregating all quantities included a figure expressing per capita consumer expenditure. INCIDENCE OF POVERTY IN INDIA Total poverty ratio in India is 26.1% (260.3 Mn absolute). Rural poverty ratio is 27.1% while Urban poverty is 23.6%. The poverty gap is relatively greater in rural areas which reflect the high intensity of poverty in villages. It has considerable regional disparity varying from less than 7% in Punjab to more than 47% in Orissa followed by Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. These along which UP, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra contribute to three-fourth of poverty in India. REASONS OF POVERTY IN INDIA
Erosion of poverty has been an integrated component of economic development policies in India. The plan-wise strategies of the government policies follow: First 3 Plans emphasized on economic growth without any direct attack on poverty. In additional to emphasis on growth and redistruction measures, the government initiated disadvantage-areas and sector-specific programmes like SFDA, MFDA, CADP, DPAP etc. in Fourth FYP. During Sixth Five Year Plan, poverty was realized predominately a rural phenomenon wherein 85% poor lived. It provided for two types of employment generating programmes, (i) Self-employment programmes to acquire productive assets, technology and skills for raising their productivity and production (IRDP). (ii) Wage employment programmes to provide supplementary wages to utilize the labour to create and maintain community assets. NREP for those having some assets while RLEGP exclusively for rural landless. VII FYP recognized that employment generation should be the centre of any poverty alleviation programme, therefore introduced JRY. The new strategy also included capability enhancing programmes like IAY, MNP etc. VIII Plan adopted an integrated programme of local area development of selective villages. IX Plan focused on 'growth with equity' to reduce inequalities. From 1999-2000, government merged various employment generation schemes into a single all inclusive Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY). The new approach focused on social mobilization through SHGs and micro-enterprises. X Plan Policy: Programmes which were revamped and refocused during IX Plan will be implemented which greater vigour in X Plan. Initiatives taken were: - (i) SGSY would shift to a process-oriented approach in 4 stages viz. formation of SHGs, savings, micro-finance and micro enterprise development. (ii) SGRY would be the single wage-employment programme having 3 streams viz. rural infrastructure, guaranteed employment of 100 days in areas of chronic unemployment and providing relief in natural calamites. (iii) Creating a network of institutions including NGOs, government agencies and financial agencies to promote a self-help movement. (iv) Identifying key activities for an area and providing relevant training. (v) Special attention on upgradation of technology, IT and marketing in rural areas. (vi) Land reforms emphasizing tenancy reforms, computerization and identification of land rights of women and tribals. (vii) Building capacities at local level for planning, implementation and monitoring of development programmes. Later on NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE ACT was enacted in September 2005 in 200 most backward districts. The objective is to provide 100 days of guaranteed unskilled wage employment to each rural household. It bestows a legal right and guarantee to the rural population through an Act of Parliament and is not a scheme like the other wage employment programmes. The focus of the Act is on works relating to water conservation, drought proofing (including Afforestation/ tree plantation), land development, flood control/ protection (including drainage in waterlogged areas) and rural connectivity in terms of all-weather roads. Besides the above employment generation programmes, the anti-poverty
derive includes:
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