PRESENTATION OF POVERTY

Poverty is a word that is used to mean many different things. The problem is that
poverty is a concept that is used to define a great deal of economic policy, and,
insofar as economic policy has - or fails to have - real impacts on people's lives,
the meaning of poverty is important.
Nowadays, poverty, especially poverty as it is experienced in the low-income
parts of the world, has become central to a great deal of discussion among
economists and policy makers, and we have various campaigns underway to
eliminate poverty, or, as the slogan would have it, "to make poverty history
Yet there are problems with this absolute deprivation concept of poverty. First of
all, there is the issue of whether or not an income measure can really capture what
we mean by people living in an "unreasonable" situation of deprivation; not all the
things that make for a reasonable existence can be readily translated into
purchasable commodities. Then there is the issue of what we mean by
"deprivation" - where does our sense of what people need come from?
To a large extent, the poor are poor because they lack power, and they lack power
because they are poor. When power is brought into consideration, the focus of
policy shifts towards such issues as land reform and the effective control of state
actions - i.e., of the underlying factors that determine spending on health care,
education and other social services. The problem of poverty, then, would be
approached as a socio-political problem, not simply as a technical problem.
REASONS OF POVERTY
POPULATION
India is second most populated country. It has limited land area with comparison
to big nations which occupies 7th position in order. The resources are very less
compared to its population. The basic amenities are not available to most of the
population. Even though we have got success in decreasing the growth rate, it is
not worthy to be considered.
UNEMPLOYMENT
India is agriculture dependent country. It is gambling with monsoons. Agriculture
cannot provide year long employment. This leads to temporary unemployment.
Most of the people who are engaged in agriculture are illiterates and do not have
any other abilities and only live on their physical abilities. This is the scenario of
the rural area. Coming to the urban area, where people are educated, but do not
have jobs. Even they have abilities, due to more population where demand and
supply rule works they do not get job related to their capacities and there are no
industrial development which can harbour youth of India.
Poor people are not included in the policies made by the governments. It has been
the effort of various governments since independence to thwart the growth of
poverty and ameliorate it, but no success has been achieved until now.
CASTE-RIDDEN
The caste based politics in rural areas has thwarted the poor to get the benefits.
Those benefits are enjoyed in the name of backward. Political parties which are
based on their caste provide benefits to their caste people primarily and providing
the backward people secondarily is the primary reason of poverty prevalent in
rural areas even though policies are written for the benefit of poor and backward.
Such castes are prevalent in India which cannot let backward classes as they lose
benefits from certain classes if they are grown economically and socially.
ILLITERACY
Most of the poor reside in villages. These cannot come to cities due to their
illiteracy and cannot live in non agricultural societies. Government provides
amenities but, as they are illiterates and do not have time to attend meetings they
could not know what government is doing for them. People are not provided with
what government is intended to provide. They are looted at every step and
provided with very less.

CORRUPTION
The role of corruption in poverty is very prominent as it is the element which is
not letting the poor get their benefits. Many programmes are initiated to support
the people to be out of poverty but they could not help because of the corruption
hole in government bag which is leaking all the things which has to reach the
poor. The 2G spectrum scam is worth of 1, 76, 000 crore. This much of money is
fallen in the wrong hands. But, Government of India outlay of MNREGA for the
2009-2010 is 39, 100 crore rupees. The money which has fallen in the wrong
hands can be utilised for another five years for this rural people work programme.
If government can utilise CWG scam, 2G scam and other scams money for the
poor, we can reduce half of poverty in India which may place India as developed.
The poverty line which divides the poor from the non-poor is got by putting a
price on the minimum required consumption levels of food, clothing, shelter, fuel
and health care, etc. There have been various attempts to define poverty line in
India percent of the rural population and 50 percent urban population lived below
this poverty line in 1960-61.

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%. 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 higher-income industrial
projects.
REDUCTION IN POVERTY
Despite all the causes, India currently adds 40 million people to its middle class
every year. Analysts such as the founder of Forecasting International, Marvin J.
Cetron writes that an estimated 300 million Indians now belong to the middle
class; one-third of them have emerged from poverty in the last ten years.
However, this has to be seen in perspective as the population of India has
increased by 370 million from 1991 and 190 million from 2001 so the absolute
number of poor has increased.
Malnutrition is often associated with diseases like diarrhoea, malaria and measles
due to the lack of access in health care which are also linked to the problem of
poverty.
IMPACT OF POVERTY
Presence of a massive parallel economy in the form of black (hidden) money
stashed of foreign aid have also contributed to the slow pace of poverty alleviation
in India.
Although the Indian economy has grown steadily over the last two decades, its
growth has been uneven when comparing social groups, economic groups,
geographic regions, and rural and urban areas Between 1999 and 2008, the
annualized growth rates for Gujarat, Haryana, or Delhi were much higher than for
Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, or Madhya Pradesh. Poverty rates in rural Orissa (43%) and
rural Bihar (41%) are among the world's most extreme. Despite significant
economic progress, one quarter of the nation's population earns less than the
government-specified poverty threshold of Rs.32 per day

United Nations had estimated that "2.1 million Indian children die before reaching
the age of 5 every year - four every minute.
The Indian government came up with the Integrated Childhood Development
Service (ICDS) in 1975 to combat the problem of malnutrition in the country.
ICDS is the world's largest child development programme, but its effects on the
problem in India are limited.This is because the programme failed to focus on
children under 3, the group that should receive the most help from the ICDS; most
growth retardation would have developed during the age of 2 and are mostly
irreversible.With the lack of help, the chances that newborn babies are unable to
develop fully would be higher.
The quality of ICDS centres varies from states to states and often the babies with
the most serious problem of malnutrition have the lowest amount of help given.
"Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, all rank in the
bottom ten in terms of ICDS coverage. Despite the poor distribution of help, the
ICDS is still considered to be efficient in improving the health of the children in
the country. Statistics from UNICEF shows that the mortality rate of children
under 5 has improved from 118 per 1000 live births in 1990 to 66 in the year
2009. However, malnutrition is still a problem for India; it has been found that
"micronutrient deficiencies alone may cost India US$2.5 billion annually.
Malnutrition can lead to children not being able to attend school or perform to
their fullest potential, which in turn leads to a decrease in labour productivity,
affecting India's economic growth as a whole.
ABUSE
In 2013 it was reported that women were being coerced into sterilisation in an
unhygienic medical environment, for a week's pay.
In the same year it has been claimed that the Indian poor are subject to clinical
tests that would not be accepted elsewhere.
Rape has been one of the ailments of poverty in India and is not tried under
ordinary criminal law when committed.
Slavery and in particular child slavery and sex slavery, have been shown to exist
in the poverty stricken regions of India. An NGO organisation has been formed
specifically to free slaves in India, claiming that India has the largest
concentration slavery in the world.


POVERTY LINE IN INDIA
Poverty Line and Trend a close reading of the Press Note of the Planning
Commission for poverty estimates in 2011-12 suggests that even the Delhi
mandarins were uneasy about using such a low poverty line. But the Planning
Commission's defense is that the value of the poverty line does not have any
impact on the estimation of the trend of poverty. According to the Planning
Commission, even if a more realistic poverty line (like the one sketched above) is
chosen, it will not change the picture of rapid poverty decline over the last 7 years.
This, as we will see shortly, is a widely accepted but erroneous proposition. But
first let us carefully read what the Planning Commission has to say on this. After
highlighting the remarkable speed of poverty decline during the 7 year period
from 2004-05 to 2011-12, the Planning Commission's note hastens to assure us
that even though a more realistic, and hence higher, poverty line would translate
into a higher level of poverty, it would not affect the trend of rapid poverty
decline. "It is important to note that although the trend decline documented above
is based on the Tendulkar poverty line which is being reviewed and may be
revised by the Rangarajan Committee, an increase in the poverty line will not alter
the fact of a decline. While the absolute levels of poverty would be higher, the rate
of decline would be similar.Estimates 2011-12, Government of India, Planning
Commission, July 2013) The proposition that the trend of poverty is independent
of the poverty line is, in fact, incorrect (we will see the reason for this below). The
choice of poverty lines impacts both the level and trend of poverty. This has been
highlighted by the work of several economists, including S. Subramanian (2012)
in India. Despite this well-known result in development economics, the fallacious
idea has surprisingly wide currency. It has been referred to many times in the past,
explicitly or implicitly, by pro-reforms commentators like Jagdish Bhagwati,
Surjit Bhalla, Arvind Panagariya, Swaminathan A. Aiyar, and others. Even
economists in good standing seem to have fallen for this fallacy: in a recent piece
in the Indian Express ("What the poverty numbers don't say"), the point has been
repeated by economist Bhaskar Dutta. "It is, of course, a tautology that a higher
poverty line will imply a greater level of poverty.

THE MYTHS AROUND POVERTY IN INDIA
First myth is that the devil lies in the methodology. Several politicians cutting
across party lines seem to suggest that it is the "absurd" poverty line
recommended by the late economist Suresh Tendulkar that has inflated the decline
in poverty levels.
In reality, the committee led by Tendulkar had only expanded the scope of the
poverty line. It is because of his recommendations that nearly 10% of the
population in 2004-05, who were not considered poor under the earlier definition,
came to be considered as poor. Second, changing the poverty line now will change
the poverty levels but will not affect greatly the pace of the decline.
The second myth, propounded by a smaller but shriller set of naysayers, is that the
National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data on which the poverty estimates are
based, are fudged. In their support, they point to the sharp differences in the
NSSO figures for 2009-10 and 2011-12.
These criticisms tend to overlook the fact that India faced a drought, and
witnessed a severe credit crunch in 2009-10, and the sharp rise since then is
because of a low base. NSSO's data quality may have declined over the past three
decades but it provides detailed primary data and is quite transparent in that sense.
Apart from Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, where the poverty decline is too sharp
even by national standards, the data for other states can be taken at its face value.
The third myth is that inequality has been exacerbated even if poverty has
declined. Inequality in India operates along four key axes: income, caste, gender
and region. The evidence over the past few years suggests a gradual decline in
inequality along each of these axes apart from gender. The latest NSSO figures,
for instance, show that the growth in consumption expenditure (a proxy for
income) has been far more evenly spread in the seven years between 2004-05 and
2011-12 than in the past decades. Also, even though this period saw much higher
growth in urban incomes and consumption, rural consumption kept pace. Rural
consumption expenditure grew at an average annual pace of 3.3% in the latter
period as compared with an anaemic annual pace of 0.8% in the 18-year-period
between 1993-94 and 2004-05 (at constant 1987-88 prices). Notwithstanding the
curious poverty figures for two major states, the decline in poverty in the recent
past has been far more widespread across Indian states than ever before. There are
no extreme outliers any more when it comes to poverty ratios. Further, the spike in
farm wages in the past few years after years of stagnation has meant that landless
labourers at the bottom of the pyramid, belonging mostly to lower castes, have
benefited the most from the rural boom.
Does this mean that the economic policies of the United Progressive Alliance
(UPA) government have succeeded? That is another myth being propounded by
the government's spokespersons.
The evidence so far suggests that the pull-up effect of growth has been far more
efficient in raising incomes than the welfare schemes of the government. For
instance, the push provided by the construction boom over the past decade has
raised farm wages much more than the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment

POVERTY SOLUTION
How can we reduce poverty while still encouraging productivity? The rich gets
richer and the poor make more kids.
Now, governments schemes are not really consensual. However, morality comes
from social contracts, which is more like a mutually agreed compromise based on
mutually cherished prejudices.
I think a social contract where the poor will get more welfare check when they
have less rather than more kids will make the poor happier. Many of them can
then use the money to either get rich or enjoy life without being burdened by kids.
Also, governments tax income. This make it difficult for the poor to get rich.
Social contracts where governments tax kids and wealth will cause less market
distortion. The rich will be happier because nothing gets on their way to make
more money. Also rich males don't mind losing some money if that means they
can be more freely and openly mate with more females.

Tax payers will be happier too. If the poor make less kids then there will be less
welfare recipients. We humanely solve poverty problems in ways that do not
make poverty grow.
And finally, women prefer rich males. This alone will improve the expected value
of the number of kids a male make and his capability to make money.
However, this effects doesn't happen a lot due to governments' active
discouragement of any alternative besides life long monogamous relationships.
Government education, for example, teach romance in school while prohibiting
porn from kids.
Marriage, is a trap to mitigate disparity of sexual desirability and romance is the
lure. Eliminating government censorship and letting the market handle the rest
will go a long way to encourage reproduction of humans with superior genetic
quality.
There are those who know that if they can't run the fastest, they will simply hit
those who do. A very practical way to prevent others from getting ahead is by
calling getting ahead something that's so bad it can't possibly be consensual and
hence has to be prohibited.

CONCLUSION
The mistakes of past and the stumbling blocks of present are keeping the poverty
alive in India. If it is not removed, our next generation also has to study in their
text books that India is still developing country. Every element which is
promoting the poverty in India is to be removed with roots of it for the growth and
development of India.