Chapter 4: Poverty - Notes for Class 11-12 Board Students
This chapter deals with the concept of poverty, its
measurement, causes, and the government's approach to alleviating it in India.
Introduction and Definition
- Poverty is a situation people want to escape from.
- It is a call to action for all to change the world so that more people may have enough to eat, adequate shelter, and access to education and health.
- It is measured using various indicators, including levels of income and consumption, social indicators, and indicators of vulnerability to risks.
- Providing minimum basic needs and reducing poverty have been the major aims of independent India, with an emphasis on the upliftment of the poorest of the poor (Antyodaya).
- More than one-fifth of the world's poor live in India alone.
Who are the Poor?
The poor include people from both urban and rural areas.
|
Category |
Examples & Characteristics |
|
Urban Poor |
Push cart vendors, street cobblers, rag pickers, beggars,
and casual laborers who migrated from rural areas. They
often live in kutcha hutments and lack basic literacy and skills. |
|
Rural Poor |
Landless agricultural laborers, cultivators with very
small landholdings (often dry or waste land), and tenant cultivators. |
- Common features of the Poor:
- Hunger and Starvation.
- Lack basic literacy and skills, leading to very limited economic opportunities and unstable employment.
- High malnutrition and ill health, leading to physical weakness.
- Chronic indebtedness due to borrowing from moneylenders at high interest rates.
- Highly vulnerable and exploited, unable to negotiate legal wages.
- Lack of access to electricity, safe drinking water, and sanitation.
- Evidence of extreme gender inequality in employment and education.
Identification of Poor People
To implement anti-poverty schemes, the government needs a
mechanism to identify the poor.
A. Historical Attempts
- Dadabhai Naoroji was the first to discuss the concept of a Poverty Line.
- He used the "jail cost of living" (menu for a prisoner) to arrive at the poverty line for adults
- He adjusted this for children (assuming 1/3 of the population were children) to arrive at a factor of 3/4 (Full diet for 2/3 population, 1/6 consuming half, and 1/6 consuming nil) to estimate the average poverty line.
B. The Poverty Line (Post-Independence)
- The official method determines the poverty line by the monetary value (per capita expenditure) of the minimum calorie intake.
- Rural areas: 2,400 calories per person a day.
- Urban areas: 2,100 calories per person a day.
- The government uses Monthly Per Capita Expenditure (MPCE) as a proxy for the income of households.
C. Categorising Poverty
|
Category |
Definition |
Aggregate Category |
|
Always Poor |
Always below the poverty line. |
Chronic Poor |
|
Usually Poor |
Usually poor but may sometimes have a little more money
(e.g., casual workers). |
|
|
Churning Poor |
Regularly move in and out of poverty (e.g., small farmers,
seasonal workers). |
Transient Poor |
|
Occasionally Poor |
Rich most of the time but may sometimes have a patch of
bad luck. |
|
|
Never Poor |
Always remain above the poverty line. |
Non-Poor |
D. Limitations of the Poverty Line Mechanism
- It groups all the poor together and does not differentiate between the very poor and the other poor.
- It does not consider non-income factors associated with poverty, such as lack of access to basic education, healthcare, drinking water, and sanitation.
- It fails to consider social factors like illiteracy, ill health, discrimination, or lack of civil and political freedoms that perpetuate poverty.
- Scholars argue that the ultimate goal of poverty alleviation should be to improve human lives by expanding the range of choices a person can make.
- Alternative methods, such as the Sen Index developed by Amartya Sen, and the Poverty Gap Index exist due to limitations in official estimation.
The Number of Poor in India
- Head Count Ratio: The number of poor is estimated as the proportion of people below the poverty line.
- Trends
in Poverty (1973-2000):
- The absolute number of poor declined from more than 321 million (1973-74) to about 260 million (1999-2000).
- The poverty ratio (Head Count Ratio) declined from about 55% (1973-74) to 26% (1999-2000).
- In 1999-2000, more than three-fourth (75%) of the poor resided in rural areas.
- Poverty, initially predominantly rural, has shifted marginally towards urban areas.
- Regional Variation (1999-2000): Five states—Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, and Orissa—account for about 70% of India's poor.
- States like West Bengal and Gujarat showed significant reduction in poverty ratio between 1973-74 and 1999-2000.
What Causes Poverty?
|
Causal Factors |
Details |
|
Colonial Legacy |
British policies, such as sharply raising rural taxes and
exporting food grains, led to famines and widespread impoverishment,
substantially de-industrializing India. |
|
Land Distribution |
Despite attempts at land redistribution after
independence, the lack of capital or skills prevented agricultural workers
from making small landholdings productive. |
|
Population Growth & Decline of Land Holdings |
Rapid population growth and lack of alternative employment
led to fragmentation of land holdings, making cultivation unviable for
small farmers. |
|
Unemployment & Indebtedness |
Many are unemployed or intermittently employed as casual
labourers in both urban and rural areas. This job insecurity leads to
indebtedness, which reinforces poverty. |
|
Inflation and Inequality |
A steep rise in the price of essential goods affects
low-income groups the most. The unequal distribution of income and assets
causes a widening gap between the rich and poor. |
Policies and Programmes Towards Poverty Alleviation
The government's strategy for poverty reduction has three
dimensions:
1. Growth-Oriented Approach
- Basis: The expectation that the effects of economic growth (trickle-down effect) would spread to all sections of society, benefiting the poor.
- Period: Major focus in the 1950s and early 1960s.
- Outcome: Failed to benefit the poor due to low overall growth, population growth, regional disparities exacerbated by the Green Revolution, and unwillingness/inability to redistribute land.
2. Specific Poverty Alleviation Programmes
- Basis: To raise income and employment for the poor through asset creation and work generation.
- Period: Initiated from the Third Five Year Plan (1961-66) and expanded since then.
- Key Programs:
- Self-Employment Programmes:
- Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP): Aims at creating self-employment in rural areas and small towns, implemented by Khadi and Village Industries Commission.
- Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana (PMRY): For educated unemployed from low-income families in rural and urban areas to set up enterprises.
- Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY): Encourages the formation of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) which receive partial financial assistance from the government.
- Wage Employment Programmes:
- Food for Work (e.g., National Food for Work Programme - NFWP): Provided wage employment.
- National Rural Employment Guarantee Act-2005 (NREGA): Guarantees 100 days of wage employment to every household whose adult member volunteers to do unskilled manual work.
3. Provision of Minimum Basic Amenities
- Basis: To improve the standard of living through public expenditure on social consumption needs.
- Period: Traced from the Fifth Five Year Plan.
- Key Programs:
- Public Distribution System (PDS): Provides food grains at subsidized rates.
- Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and Midday Meal Scheme.
- National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP): Provides a pension to elderly, poor women, and destitute persons.
- Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (PMGY), Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana (VAAY).
Poverty Alleviation Programmes - A Critical
Assessment
Despite efforts, hunger, malnourishment, and lack of basic
amenities remain common.
- Inefficient Resource Appropriation: Due to unequal distribution of assets, the benefits have often been appropriated by the non-poor.
- Insufficient Resources and Inefficient Use: The amount of resources allocated is often insufficient compared to the magnitude of poverty, and the resources are inefficiently used or wasted due to corruption and poorly motivated officials.
- Lack of Participation: There is non-participation of local-level institutions in programme implementation.
- Focus on Growth Alone is Insufficient: High growth rates alone are not enough to reduce poverty.
Conclusion
While the absolute number of poor has gone down and some states have performed well, India is still far from reaching the goal of poverty eradication. The fruits of development have not reached all sections, and many remain stuck in the vicious circle of poverty.
0 Comments