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POVERTY IN INDIA What is Poverty?

According to the World Bank (2000), poverty is pronounced deprivation in wellbeing. Well-being is defined as the command over commodities in general, so people are better off if they have a greater command over resources. The main focus is on whether households or individuals have enough resources to meet their needs. Typically, poverty is then measured by comparing individuals income or consumption with some defined threshold below which they are considered to be poor. This is the most conventional view poverty is seen largely in monetary termsand is the starting point for most analyses of poverty. Perhaps the broadest approach to well-being is the one articulated by Amartya Sen (1987), who argues that well-being comes from a capability to function in society. Thus, poverty arises when people lack key capabilities, and so have inadequate income or education, or poor health, or insecurity, or low self-confidence, or a sense of powerlessness, or the absence of rights such as freedom of speech.

Poverty in India
Poverty in India is widespread, with the nation estimated to have a third of the world's poor. In 2010, the World Bank reported that 32.7% of the total Indian people fall below the international poverty line of US$1.25 per day (PPP) while 68.7% live on less than US$ 2 per day. According to 2010 data from the United Nations Development Programme, an estimated 29.8% of Indians live below the country's national poverty line. A 2010 report by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) states that 8 Indian states have more poor people than 26 poorest African nations combined which totals to more than 410 million poor in the poorest African countries.A 2013 UN report stated that a third of the worlds poorest people live in India. According to a 2011 poverty Development Goals Report, as many as 320 million people in India and China are expected to come out of extreme poverty in the next four years, while India's poverty rate is projected to drop to 22% in 2015. The report also indicates that in Southern Asia, however, only India, where the poverty rate is projected to fall from 51% in 1990 to about 22% in 2015, is on track to cut poverty by half by the 2015 target date.

However, this decline in poverty is debatable given the fact that there are question marks on methodology. Indian journalist Ravi S Jha writes in the Guardian on the need of measuring poverty by segregating India's poor in different groups. The areas in which Indias middle and upper classes make their living have seen the highest degree of economic liberalisation, while the areas in which the poor earn their livelihood have seen the least reform. Since 1991, India has undergone a great deal of liberalisation internally and externally. Many feel that the gains of this liberalisation and globalization have not accrued to the poor. who? The latest UNICEF data shows that one in three malnourished children worldwide are found in India, whilst 42% of the nation's children under five years of age are underweight. It also shows that a total of 58% of children under five surveyed were stunted. Rohini Mukherjee, of the Naadi foundation one of the NGOs that published the report stated India is "doing worse than sub-Saharan Africa." The 2011 Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report places India amongst the three countries where the GHI between 1996 and 2011 went up from 22.9 to 23.7, while 78 out of the 81 developing countries studied, including Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Kenya, Nigeria, Myanmar, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Malawi, succeeded in improving hunger conditions. ccording to a recent Indian government committee constituted to estimate poverty, nearly 38% of Indias population (380 million) is poor. This report is based on new methodology and the figure is 10% higher than the present poverty estimate of 28.5%.

The committee was headed by SD Tendulkar has used a different methodology to reach at the current figure. It has taken into consideration indicators for heath, education, sanitation, nutrition and income as per National Sample Survey Organization survey of 200405. This new methodology is a complex scientific basis aimed at addressing the concern raised over the current poverty estimation.

Since 1972 poverty has been defined on basis of the money required to buy food worth 2100 calories in urban areas and 2400 calories in rural areas. In June this year a government committee headed by NC Saxena committee estimated 50% Indians were poor as against Planning Commissions 2006 figure of 28.5%.

Poverty is one of the main problems which have attracted attention of sociologists and economists. It indicates a condition in which a person fails to maintain a living standard adequate for his physical and mental efficiency. It is a situation people want to escape. It gives rise to a feeling of a discrepancy between what one has and what one should have. The term poverty is a relative concept. It is very difficult to draw a demarcation line between affluence and poverty. According to Adam Smith - Man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, the conveniences and the amusements of human life. Even after more than 50 years of Independence India still has the world's largest number of poor people in a single country. Of its nearly 1 billion inhabitants, an estimated 260.3 million are below the poverty line, of which 193.2 million are in the rural areas and 67.1 million are in urban areas. More than 75% of poor people reside in villages. Poverty level is not uniform across India. The poverty level is below 10% in states like Delhi, Goa, and Punjab etc whereas it is below 50% in Bihar (43) and Orissa (47). It is between 30-40% in Northeastern states of Assam, Tripura, and Mehgalaya and in Southern states of TamilNadu and Uttar Pradesh.

Poverty has many dimensions changing from place to place and across time. There are two inter-related aspects of poverty - Urban and rural poverty. The main causes of urban poverty are predominantly due to impoverishment of rural peasantry that forces them to move out of villages to seek some subsistence living in the towns and cities. In this process, they even lose the open space or habitat they had in villages albeit without food and other basic amenities. When they come to the cities, they get access to some food though other sanitary facilities including clean water supply still elude them. And they have to stay in the habitats that place them under sub-human conditions. While a select few have standards of living comparable to the richest in the world, the majority fails to get two meals a day. The causes of rural poverty are manifold including inadequate and ineffective implementation of antipoverty programmes.The overdependence on monsoon with non-availability of irrigational facilities often result in crop-failure and low agricultural productivity forcing farmers in the debt-traps. The rural communities tend to spend large percentage of annual earnings on social ceremonies like marriage; feast etc.Our economic development since Independence has been lopsided .There has been increase in unemployment creating poverty like situations for many. Population is growing at an alarming rate. The size of the Indian family is relatively bigger

averaging at 4.2.The other causes include dominance of caste system which forces the individual to stick to the traditional and hereditary occupations.

CAUSES
One cause is a high population growth rate, although demographers generally agree that this is a symptom rather than cause of poverty. While services and industry have grown at double-digit figures, agriculture growth rate has dropped from 4.8% to 2%. About 60% of the population depends on agriculture whereas the contribution of agriculture to the GDP is about 18%.[40] The surplus of labour in agriculture has caused many people to not have jobs. Farmers are a large vote bank and use their votes to resist reallocation of land for higherincome industrial projects.

CASTE SYSTEM

According to S. M. Michael, Dalits constitute the bulk of poor and unemployed. According to William A. Haviland, casteism is widespread in rural areas and continues to segregate Dalits. Others, however, have noted the steady rise and empowerment of the Dalits through social reforms and the implementation of reservations in employment and benefits.

INDIA'S ECONOMIC POLICIES

In 1947, the average annual income in India was US$619, compared with US$439 for China, US$770 for South Korea, and US$936 for Taiwan. By 1999, the numbers were US$1,818 India; US$3,259 China; US$13,317 South Korea ; and US$15,720 Taiwan, respectively. (Numbers are in 1990 international Maddison dollars.) In other words, the average income in India was not much different from South Korea in 1947, but South Korea became a developed country by the 2000s. At the same time, India was left as one of the world's poorer countries. License Raj refers to the elaborate licenses, regulations and the accompanying red tape that were required to set up and run business in Indiabetween 1947 and 1990. The License Raj was a result of India's decision to have a planned economy, where all aspects of the economy are controlled by the state and licenses were given to a select few. Corruption flourished under this system.

The labyrinthine bureaucracy often led to absurd restrictions up to 80 agencies had to be satisfied before a firm could be granted a licence to produce and the state would decide what was produced, how much, at what price and what sources of capital were used. India had started out in the 1950s with high growth rates, openness to trade and investment, a promotional state, social expenditure awareness and macro stability but ended the 1980s with with low growth rates, closure to trade and investment, a license-obsessed, restrictive state (License Raj), inability to sustain social expenditures and macro instability, indeed economic crisis. LIBERALISATION POLICIES AND THEIR EFFECTS Other points of view hold that the economic reforms initiated in the early 1990s are responsible for the collapse of rural economies and the agrarian crisis currently underway. As journalist and the Rural Affairs editor for The Hindu, P Sainath describes in his reports on the rural economy in India, the level of inequality has risen to extraordinary levels, when at the same time, hunger in India has reached its highest level in decades. He also points out that rural economies across India have collapsed, or on the verge of collapse due to the neo-liberal policies of the government of India since the 1990s. The human cost of the "liberalisation" has been very high.[clarification needed] The huge wave of farm suicides in Indian rural population from 1997 to 2007 totalled close to 200,000, according to official statistics. That number remains disputed, with some saying the true number is much higher. Commentators have faulted the policies pursued by the government which, according to Sainath, resulted in a very high portion of rural households getting into the debt cycle, resulting in a very high number of farm suicides. As professor Utsa Patnaik, India's top economist on agriculture, has pointed out, the average poor family in 2007 has about 100 kg less food per year than it did in 1997. Government policies encouraging farmers to switch to cash crops, in place of traditional food crops, has resulted in an extraordinary increase in farm input costs, while market forces determined the price of the cash crop. Sainath points out that a disproportionately large number of affected farm suicides have occurred with cash crops, because with food crops such as rice, even if the price falls, there is food left to survive on. He points out that inequality has reached one of the highest rates India has ever seen. In a report by Chetan Ahya, executive director at Morgan Stanley, it is pointed out that there has been a wealth increase of close to US$1 trillion in the time frame of 20032007 in the Indian stock market, while only 4%7% of the Indian population hold any equity. During the time when public investment in agriculture shrank to 2% of the GDP, the nation suffered the worst agrarian crisis in decades, the same time as India became the nation of second highest number of dollar billionaires. Sainath argues that The per capita food availability has declined every five years without exception from 19922010 whereas from 19721991 it had risen every five-year period without exception. Farm incomes have collapsed. Hunger has grown very fast. Public investment in agriculture shrank to nothing a long time ago. Employment has collapsed. Non-farm employment has stagnated. (Only the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has brought

some limited relief in recent times.) Millions move towards towns and cities where, too, there are few jobs to be found. In one estimate, over 85 per cent of rural households are either landless, sub-marginal, marginal or small farmers. Nothing has happened in 15 years that has changed that situation for the better. Much has happened to make it a lot worse. Those who have taken their lives were deep in debt peasant households in debt doubled in the first decade of the neoliberal "economic reforms, from 26 per cent of farm households to 48.6 per cent. Meanwhile, all along, India kept reducing investment in agriculture (standard neoliberal procedure). Life was being made more and more impossible for small farmers. As of 2006, the government spends less than 0.2% of GDP on agriculture and less than 3% of GDP on education. However, some government schemes such as the mid-day meal scheme, and the NREGA have been partially successful in providing a lifeline for the rural economy and curbing the further rise of poverty.

Why should poverty be measured?

There are four reasons to measure poverty: To keep poor people on the agenda To be able to identify poor people and so to be able to target appropriate interventions To monitor and evaluate projects and policy interventions geared to poor people To evaluate the effectiveness of institutions whose goal is to help poor people.

MEASURING POVERTY IN INDIA

The poor are identified using a yardstick of expenditure needed to fulfill the basic needs. The amount required for this has to be determined and those who earn less than this level is considered to be living below poverty line. The first stage to identify the poor is to fix the poverty line. This is an imaginary line. Deciding the physical energy requirement of an individual for his daily life is the first phase. Physical energy is calculated in calories. In India, a person in the rural area needs 2400 calories and in the urban area 2100 calories for his daily needs. Food articles required to obtain that amount of energy have to be ascertained. Then, the income required to buy the amount of food articles has to be calculated. The usual procedure in India is to decide the poverty line keeping that as the yardstick. On the basis of this, in 2004-2005, it was decided that a person earning less than Rs. 356.30 in rural areas and Rs.538.60 in urban areas, in a month, falls below the poverty line. Poverty ratio can be found out by dividing the number of poor by the total population.

Poverty ratio =
x 100

Poverty ratio shows the percentage of people living below the poverty line. In 2004, the poverty ratio in India was 27.5. It means that out of the total population 27.5% were living below the poverty line.

POVERTY IN INDIA

Dadabhai Naoroji, who was one of the important leaders of our national movement, was the person who first scientifically calculated the poverty in India. After independence, many attempts were made to calculate poverty. Between 1973 and 2004, the poverty ratio decreased by half but there was no substantial change in the number. We have understood what is meant by poverty ratio. Figure shows the poverty estimates in the important states.

Between 1993 and 2010, the poverty ratio decreased by half but there was no substantial change in the number. You have understood what is meant by poverty ratio. Figure shows the poverty estimates in the important states.

ERADICATION OF POVERTY Poverty is not only the problem of the person who faces it. It is also the problem of the society. So the government has to play a major role in eradicating it. Along with that, social interventions are inevitable for elimination of poverty. The following measures can go a long way to reduce the poverty in India . They are: 1. More Employment Opportunities: Poverty can be eliminated by provide more employment opportunities so that people may be able to meet their basic needs" For this purpose, labour intensive rather than capital intensive techniques can help solve the problem to a greater extent. During the Sixth and Seventh Five Year Plans, programmes like Integrated Rural Development Programme, Jawahar Rozgar Yojana Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme etc. have started with a view eliminate poverty in the rural sector. 2. Minimum Needs Programme: The programme of minimum needs can help to reduce poverty. This fact was realized in the early seventies as benefits of growth; not percolate to poor people and less developed countries are left with no choice ex to pay direct attention to the basic needs of the low strata of the society. In the Five Year Plan, minimum needs programme was introduced for the first time.

3. Social Security Programmes: The various social security schemes Workmen's Compensation Act, Maternity Benefit Act, Provident Fund Act, Employ, State Insurance Act and other benefits in case of death, disability or disease while duty can make a frontal attack on poverty. 4. Establishment of Small Scale Industries: The policy of encouraging c and small industries can help to create employment in rural areas especially in backward regions. Moreover, this will transfer resources from surplus areas to deficit without creating much problem of urbanization. 5. Uplift of Rural Masses: As it is mentioned that India lives in villages, various schemes for the uplift of rural poor may be started. The poor living, in rural areas generally belong to the families of landless agricultural labourers, small marginal farmers, village artisans, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. However must be remembered that Government of India has introduced many schemes from time to time. 6. Land Reforms: Land reforms have the motto, "land belongs to the tiller". Thus legislature measures were undertaken to abolish Zamindari System. Intermediaries ceiling on holdings was fixed. But it is a bad luck, these land reforms lack pr implementation. Even then, it is expected that if these reforms are implement seriously, it would yield better results which will be helpful to reduce the income of affluent section. 7. Spread of Education: Education helps to bring out the best in human l| mind and spirit. Therefore, it is urgent to provide education facilities to all. The should be given special facilities of stipend, free books and contingency allowance Education will help to bring awakening among the poor and raise their mental faculty. 8. Social and Political Atmosphere: Without the active co-operation of citizens and political leaders, poverty cannot be eradicated from India. A conducive social political atmosphere is a necessary condition for eradicating the poverty from its root. 9. To Provide Minimum Requirements: Ensuring the supply of minimum needs to the poor sections of society can help in solving the problem of poverty. For this, the public procurement and distribution system should be improved and strengthened.

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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Over the last six decades India has undergone a slow but sustained demographic, social, economic, agricultural, nutrition and health transition. Over the last five decades there has been a steady if slow economic growth, which is accompanied by reduction in poverty. During the last decade the GDP growth rate has accelerated The Green Revolution ensured that the increase in food production stayed ahead of the increase in population. The country has moved from chronic shortages to self-sufficiency and later surplus and export in most food items. Along with the steps to achieve adequate production, initiatives were taken to build up buffer stock of food grains. Public Distribution System (PDS) has ensured that foodstuffs of the right quality and quantity reach the right places and persons at the right time and at an affordable cost. The food for work programme addressed the needs of the vulnerable out-of-work persons. The ICDS programme aimed at providing food supplementation for vulnerable groups such as pre-school children, pregnant and lactating women, nearly covers all blocks in the country. The Mid-day-meal programme aimed at improving the dietary intake of primary school children and reduction in the school drop out rates has been operationalised throughout the country. Over decades health infrastructure and manpower has been built up and there is universal access to essential primary health care. National programmes for tackling anaemia, iodine deficiency disorders and Vitamin-A deficiency are being implemented. As a result of all these interventions, there has been a substantial reduction in severe grades of under-nutrition in children and some improvement in the nutritional status of all the segments of population. Kwashiorkor, marasmus, pellagra, beriberi and blindness due to severe Vitamin-A deficiency have become rare. However there are still many problems to be tackled and there is a need to accelerate the pace of improvement in nutrition and health status of the population. Data reviewed so far suggest that in India there has not been much change in the predominantly cereal based dietary intakes over the last three decades except among affluent segments of population. In spite of increasing per capita income and reduction in poverty, dietary diversity is seen mainly among affluent. Though there has been reduction in poverty and improved access to food at subsidized cost under-nutrition rates continue to be high. The high under-nutrition rate begins in-utero, gets aggravated in infancy due to poor infant feeding practices and is perpetuated in childhood due to poor intra-family distribution of food

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and poor access to health care. The substantial reduction in severe under-nutrition in preschool children over the last three decades has occurred without any increase in dietary intake and appears to be mainly due to improved access to health care. As poverty and poor access to food are no longer the major barriers to improvement in dietary intake, the country can achieve substantial improvement in dietary intake through health and nutritional education; when coupled with improved access to health and nutrition services there will be acceleration in the pace of improvement in nutritional status of the population. Prevention of intrauterine growth retardation through antenatal care, early detection and correction of under-nutrition in infancy and early childhood so that children attain appropriate weight for their height are essential to promote normal growth; this can be achieved through effective implementation of ongoing intervention programmes through convergence between health and ICDS programmes utilizing the available infrastructure and manpower . Low intake of vegetables and fruits, poor bioavailability of iron, and lack of universal use of iodised salt are responsible for micronutrient deficiencies being major public health problems even to day. Dietary diversification, better coverage under the national anaemia control programme, massive dose vitamin A administration, universal access to iodised and later iron and iodine fortified salt are some of the interventions that could help the country to achieve rapid reduction in micronutrient deficiencies. Over the last decade there has been a progressive increase in over-nutrition. Available data indicate that the dietary intake has remained essentially unaltered except among urban affluent segments of the population Reduction of physical activity is the major factor behind the progressive increase in over-nutrition. Currently overnutrition rates are low in rural population and among poorer segments of population in urban areas. In the urban affluent segments an increase in energy intake of fats, refined cereals and sugar and simultaneous reduction in physical activity have contributed to the rapid increase in over-nutrition in all age groups. Nutrition education that children, adolescents and adults should eat balanced diet with just adequate energy intake and lots of vegetables and health education that exercise has to become a part of daily routine to promote muscle and bone health as well as prevent development of adiposity in all age groups have to be beamed regularly through all channels of communication. As the urban affluent segments access information and services readily, they can be persuaded to change their life styles so that they regain their normal nutrition and health status. The fact that they have changed their lifestyle could stimulate the other

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segments to follow suit thereby combat the trend towards increasing overnutrition in the large low and middle income group population. Indians appear to have a predisposition for adiposity especially abdominal, insulin resistance and diabetes, hyper-triglyceridaemia and cardiovascular diseases. This predisposition could be genetic or environmental; it can manifest itself at birth, in childhood, during adolescence and in adult life. The tendency for adiposity and altered metabolism has to be combated through efforts to ensure healthy dietary habits and lifestyle right from childhood in all segments of population. This is essential to prevent sharp escalation in the noncomunicable disease risk in the population and improve longevity. With the current economic growth, demographic opportunity window, increasing literacy and social transition, the country has an unparalleled opportunity to rapidly improve health and nutritional status of the population. The dual nutrition burden can be combated through efficient implementation of time tested; effective and inexpensive interventions and the country can achieve significant reduction in both over and under nutrition and their adverse health consequences within the next two decades. During the last decade rate of economic growth has accelerated. The Eleventh Plan has inclusive growth has one of the major objectives and equitable access to essential services including access to education, nutrition and health care based on need and not the ability to pay. India has entered the most favorable phase of demographic transition when most of the increase in the population will be due to increase in 15-50 age groups. The rapid economic growth coupled with the low dependency ratio and growing numbers of the relatively better educated, better nourished and healthy 20 -50 age group population provides the country with an opportunity to rapidly improve the health and nutritional status of the citizens. If there is accelerating convergence among all these favorable inputs, it will be possible to sustain the economic growth through optimal utilization of the abundant human resources and improve the quality of life of the citizens .