Poverty:
Poverty is a state or situation in which a person or community lacks the financial assets and basics for a minimum standard of living. Poverty means that the income level from employment is so low that basic human requirements can’t be met. Poverty-stricken individuals and folks might go without suitable housing, clean water, nutritious food, and medical care. Each nation may have its own standard that defines how many of its people are living in poverty.
Poverty is of 2 types – absolute and relative. Absolute poverty is calculated by the percentage of people living below the poverty line or by the head count ratio. Relative poverty denotes to income inequality. In evaluating poverty the first step is to set a standard and then take an estimation of the number of persons who fulfil the standard in diverse regions of the country and at dissimilar points of time. However, description of that standard has to be subjective, reflecting a social value conclusion. The poverty line is updated by approximating what it would cost to attain the base year consumption basket with prices prevalent in subsequent years.
Official Definition of Poverty in India:
Indian formal definition of poverty is considered in terms of calorie intake. It is calculated by expenditure essential for a daily calorie intake of 2,400 per person in rural areas and 2,100 in urban areas. The expenditure is officially valued at Rs. 228.90 per capita per month in rural areas and Rs. 264.10 in urban areas at 1993-94 prices.
In India the official estimation of poverty is based on the head count ratio (HCR) which is the number of persons below the poverty line as a per cent of the total population. However, there are complications in comparing poverty evaluations over time. The frequency of poverty changes from year to year dependent on monsoon.
There is thus a variance between temporary poverty and permanent poverty. Thus a association between two time periods can be misrepresentative. Yet there is strong evidence to show that poverty has decreased over the 1980s and 1990s. The fall over the 1990s is more rapid.
Poverty has dropped in almost all States. But its frequency varies across States. The State-wise approximations of rural poverty show that the percentage point reduction varies across States.
Causes of Poverty in India:
High population growth percentage is one of major explanations of poverty in India. This further results in high level of illiteracy, poor health care facilities and lack of access to financial resources. Also, high population increase impacts the per capita income and makes per capita income even worse. It is projected that population in India will reach 1.5 billion by 2026 and then India will be the largest nation in the world in terms of population. But India’s economy is not developing at the same speed. This means scarcity of jobs. For this much populace, near about 20 million new jobs would be compulsory. Number of poor will keep on snowballing if such a large number of jobs won’t be generated.
Ever growing prices of even basic wares is another cause of poverty. A person under the poverty line finds it challenging to stay alive. Caste system and disproportionate distribution of income and wealth is one more cause of poverty in India.
Apart from all these, unskilled workers are paid very little in spite of hard work they put daily. The issue lies with the disorganized sector as owners are not bothered about the way their workers are living and the amount they are being paid. Their zone of worry is just economizing and extra profit. Because of the amount of workers searching for a job is greater than the jobs available, unskilled workers have no other choice but to work for a lesser amount of money. The government should really find a method to enforce minimum pay standards for these workers. At the same time, the government should safeguard that this is executed well.
Poverty must be eliminated from India as every person has the right to live a vigorous life.
Current Status of Poverty in India:
More than 800 million people in India are considered to be poor. Most of them live in the rural area and earn their living with odd jobs. The lack of employment which delivers a liveable wage in rural parts is diverting many Indians into quickly growing metropolitan areas such as Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore or Calcutta. There, most of them presume a life of poverty and misery in the mega-slums, made up of millions of corrugated ironworks, without adequate drinking water supply, without garbage disposal and in many cases without electricity. The poor hygiene surroundings are the root of diseases such as cholera, typhus and dysentery, in which particularly children suffer and die.
Poverty in India influences children, families and individuals in a multiplicity of dissimilar ways through:
• High infant mortality
• Malnutrition
• Child labour
• Lack of education
• Child marriage
• HIV / AIDS
As India is one of the fastest-growing nations in the world, poverty is decreasing in the country, with close to 18 Indians evading life-threatening poverty every minute, as per the World Poverty Clock. India had 53.5 million people alive in extreme poverty which makes up 4% of its total population, according to the Brookings report. In May 2012, the World Bank studied and proposed amendments to their poverty evaluation methodology and purchasing power parity basis for measuring poverty globally. It was a minimal 3.6% in terms of calculation. As of 2020, the occurrence of multidimensional poverty has meaningfully declined, decreasing from 54.7 percent in 2005 to 17 percent in 2020. But today its economy is falling.
Poverty Alleviation:
The poverty alleviation programmes in India can be classified based on whether it is directed either for rural parts or for urban regions in the country.
Most of the programmes are intended to mark rural poverty as the occurrence of poverty is high in rural zones. Also marking poverty is a great task in rural areas due to numerous geographic and infrastructure limitations. The programmes can be mainly grouped into 1) Wage employment programmes 2) Self-employment programmes 3) Food security programmes 4) Social security programmes 5) Urban poverty alleviation programmes. 6) Skill India programmes for employment. The five year plans immediately after independence tried to focus on poverty alleviation through sectoral programmes.
Some of the schemes in India are:
• Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY)
• National Old Age Pension Scheme (NOAPS)
• National Family Benefit Scheme (NFBS)
• National Maternity Benefit Scheme
• Annapurna
• Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP)
• Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awaas Yojana
Poverty is a major reason of ill health and a obstacle to gain access to health care when obligatory. This association is financial: the poor cannot pay for those things that are needed for good health, including adequate measures of quality food and health care.
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