Slides on poverty as a challenge
- 1. WEL COME
- 3. Introduction In our daily life, we come across many people who we think are poor. They could be landless labourers in villages or people living in overcrowded jhuggis ( Slums) in cities. They could also be beggars with children in tatters We see poverty all around us. In fact, every 4th person in India is poor. This means, roughly 260 million (or 26 crore) people in India live in poverty. This also means that India has the largest single concentration of the poor in the world. This illustrates the seriousness of the challenge.
- 4. What does poverty means? Poverty means hunger and lack of shelter. It also is a situation in which parents are not able to send their children to school. It is a situation where sick people cannot afford treatment. It also means lack of clean water and sanitation facilities. It also means lack of a regular job at a minimum decent levels.
- 5. Urban Case: Story of Ram Saran: •Thirty year old Ram Saran works as a daily-wage labourer in a wheat flour mill near Ranchi in Jharkhand. • He manages to earn around Rs. 1,500 a month when he finds employment. • The money is not enough to sustain a family of six including himself, his wife and four children ( aged between 6 to 12 years) • He has to send money home to his parents who live in a village near Ramgarh. • Ram Saran lives in a one-room rented house in a crowded urban settlement in the out skirts of the city.
- 6. Cont…. • His wife Santa Devi, works as a part time maid in a few houses and manages to earn another Rs. 800. • They manage a meager meal of dal and rice twice a day, but its never enough for all of them. • His elder son works as a helper in a tea shop to supplement the family income and earns another Rs300. • His 10-years old daughter takes care of the younger siblings. • None of the children go to school and have only 2 pairs of second hand clothes. Shoes are a luxury. • The children have no healthcare when they fall ill.
- 7. Story of Lakha Singh: •Lakha Singh belongs to a small village near Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. • His family doesn’t own any land, so they do odd jobs for the big farmers. • At times they get paid Rs. 50 for a hard day’s work.. • The family of eight cannot always manage two square meals a day. • They live in a Kucha hut in the out skirts of the village.
- 8. Cont…. • The women of the family spend the day chopping fodder and collection firewood in the fields. • He had to start earning when he was 10 years old. • His father a TB patient , passed away two years ago due to lack of medication. His mother now suffers from the same disease and life is slowly ebbing(decline) away. • Although the village has a primary school, Lakha never went there. • New clothes are bought once in a few years, and even soap and oil are a luxury for the family.
- 9. What do they show?
- 10. What do they show? 1.They show that poverty means hunger and lack of shelter. 2. Poverty also means lack of clean water and sanitation facilities. 3. Poor people are in a situation in which they are ill-treated at almost every place. 4. It also means lack of a regular job at a minimum decent level.
- 11. Poverty as seen by social scientists • Poverty is looked through other social indicators like illiteracy level, lack of general resistance due to malnutrition, lack of access to healthcare, lack of job opportunities, lack of access to safe drinking water, sanitation etc. •Analysis of poverty based on social exclusion and vulnerability is now becoming very common
- 12. Social Exclusion It is a process through which individuals or Groups are prevented from using facilities, benefits and opportunities that the better of section of the society enjoy. Social Exclusion can be both a cause and a Consequence of poverty.
- 13. Vulnerability Venerability describes the grater probability of being more adversely affected than other people when bad time comes for everybody.( say members of a backward caste) or individuals such as a widow or a physically handicapped person of becoming, or remaining, poor in the coming years. Ex: Whether a flood or an earth quake or simply a fall in the availability of jobs
- 15. Poverty line • A common method used to measure poverty is based on the income or consumption levels. • A person is considered poor if his or her income or consumption level falls below a given minimum level necessary to fulfill basic needs . • Poverty line may be very with time and place, each country uses an imaginary line Ex: A person not having a car in the USA may be considered poor. In India owning of a car is still considered a luxury.
- 16. Cont…. • While determining the poverty in India a minimum level of food requirement, clothing foot wear, medical requirements etc are determined. • The accepted average calorie requirement in India is 2400 calories per-person per-day in rural areas and 2100 calories per-person per-day in urban areas. • Since people living in rural areas engage themselves in more physical work, calorie requirements in rural areas are considered to be higher than urban areas. • For the year 2009-10 the poverty line for a person was fixed at Rs.673 per- month for rural areas and Rs. 860 for the urban areas.( is revised periodically taking into consideration the rise in prices).
- 17. Cont…. • Despite of less calorie requirement, the higher amount for urban areas has been fixed because of high prices of many essential products in urban centres. • The poverty line is estimated periodically ( normally every five years) by conducting sample surveys. • These surveys are carried out by the national Sample Survey Organization ( NSSO). • However, for making comparison between developing countries, many international organizations like world Bank we use a uniform standard for poverty line: minimum availability of the equivalent of $ 1 per day.
- 18. Is present methodology of poverty estimation appropriate? • No, the present methodology of poverty of poverty estimation is not appropriate. •It is only a quantitative concept. It captures only a limited part of what poverty really means to the people. • Many scholars advocate that we must broaden the concept in to human poverty. The other aspects like education, shelter, healthcare, job, equality etc, should also be included while calculating poverty.
- 20. Cont…. • There is substantial decline in poverty ratios in India from about 55% in 1993, the proportion of people below poverty line further came down to about 26% in 2000. • If the trend continues, people below poverty line may come down to less than 20% in the next few years. • The latest estimates indicate a significant reduction in the number of poor to about 260 million.
- 22. Cont…. The proportion of people below poverty line is also not same for all social groups and economic categories in India. i)SOCIAL GROUPS: Which are most vulnerable to poverty are Scheduled caste and Scheduled tribe households. ii) ECONOMIC GROUPS: Among economic groups, the most vulnerable groups are the rural agricultural labour house holds and the urban casual labour households. iii) Women , elderly people and female infants are systematically denies equal access to resources available to the family. Therefore women, children (especially girl child) and old people are poorest of the poor.
- 23. Cont…. iv) Although the average for people below poverty line for all groups in India is 26%. v) 51 out of 100 people belonging to scheduled tribe are not able to meet their basic needs. vi) Similarly 50% of casual workers in urban areas are below poverty line . vii) About 50% of landless agricultural workers and 43% of scheduled castes are also poor.
- 24. Interstate Disparities • There has been significant decline in poverty since independence. • In 1960-61 more than 34% population of the country was living below poverty line which has declined to 26% in 2000-2001. • Although there has been reduction in poverty, the success rate of reducing poverty varies from state to state. • Recent estimates show that in 20 states and union territories, the poverty ratio is less than the national average. • On the other hand, poverty is still a serious problem in Orissa, Bihar, Assam, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh. • Orissa and Bihar continue to be the two poorest states with poverty ratio of 47% and 43% respectively. • In comparison, there has been a significant decline in poverty in Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu Gujarat and West Bengal.
- 26. Steps taken by the states to reduce poverty ratio 1. States like Punjab and Haryana have traditionally succeeded in reducing poverty with the help of high agricultural growth rates ( Green Revolution). 2. Kerala has focused more on human resource development. 3. In West-Bengal, land reform measures have helped in reducing poverty. 4. In Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Public distribution of food grains could have been responsible for the improvement.
- 28. Cont…. • The proportion of people in developing countries living in extreme economic poverty defined by the World Bank as living on less than $1 per day has fallen from 28% in 1960 to 21% in 2001. • Although there has been a substantial reduction in global poverty, it is marked with great regional differences. • Poverty declined substantially in China and South-East Asian countries ( Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Timor-leste, Indonesia, Laos, Malasia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam), as a result of rapid economic growth and massive investment in human resource development.
- 29. Cont…. • In countries of South Asia ( India, |Srilanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan) the decline has not been as rapid. • In Sub-Saharan Africa, poverty in fact rose from 51% in 1981 to 47% 2008. • In Latin America the ratio of poverty remained the same. • Poverty has also resurfaced in some of the former socialist countries like Russia, where officially it was non-existent earlier.
- 30. Causes of Poverty 1. BRITISH RULE: Britishers ruled India for more than 200 years. Prior to the British rule, traditional industries, for instant, Textiles, were flourishing in India. During the British rule they adopted policies to discourage such industries. This left million of weavers poor. 2. RURAL ECONOMY: The major production is of primary goods. In India, 70% of the total population is engaged in agriculture but its contribution to the national income is only one third. It means that despite India being predominantly an agricultural country, it is very much back ward in agriculture.
- 31. Cont…. 3. HEAVY PRESSURE OF POPULATION: Population in India has increasing very rapidly. Main factors accounting for its fall in death rate, but stable birth rate for many decades. This pressure of population serves as a big block to economic development. 4. LACK OF PROPER INDSUTRIALISATIOIN: India is very backward from the industrial point of view. Hardly 3% of population engaged in large scale industry. 5. CHRONIC UNEMPLOYMENT: 6. IRREGULAR SMALL INCOMES: 7. HUGE INCOME INEQUALITIES:
- 32. Anti-Poverty Measures By The Indian Government The current anti-poverty strategy of the government is based broadly on two planks: 1. Promotion of economic growth: Economic growth widened opportunities and provides resources needed to invest in human development. 2. Targeted anti poverty measures:
- 33. I.NREGA-2005 • This programme was launched in the year 2005. • Under this programme 100 days of wage employment is provided to every rural house hold. • 1 /3 of jobs are reserved for women. • If government fails to provide employment within 15 days it will give compensation
- 34. II NFWP • National Food For Work Programme was launched on 14th November 2004. In 150 most backward districts of India. • The objective of this programme is to generate supplementary wage employment. • The programme is open to all rural poor who are prepared to do manual, unskilled labour.
- 35. III.PMRY •Prime-Minister Rozgar Yojana was started in 1993. • The PMRY has been intended to give employment to over million people by stating seven lakhs micro ventures by the jobless educated youth. • It recounts to the stating of self- employment schemes through commerce, service and business means.
- 36. IV.REGP • Rural Employment Generation Programme launched in 1995, to generate employment in rural areas. • The objective of this programme is to develop entrepreneurial skills among rural unemployed youth to achieve the goal of rural industrialization. • Target of this programme was to create 25 lakh new jobs.
- 37. V.SGSY •Swarnajayanthi Gram Swarozgar Yojana launched in 1999 with the aim to provide self-employment to villagers through the establishment of self-help groups. • To bring assisted poor families above poverty line through Ngos, banks and financial institution credits and government subsidy.
- 38. VI.PMGY •Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana was launched in 2000-2001 in all States and Union Territories in order to achieve the objective of sustainable human development at the village level. • PMGY initially had five components EX: Primary education, rural shelter, rural drinking water and nutrition.
- 39. VII.AAY •Antodaya Anna Yojana is an Indian government sponsored scheme for ten million of the poorest families. • It is on the look out for the poorest of the poor by providing them 35 kgs of Rice and Wheat at Rs. 3 and Rs. 2 per kg respectively.
- 40. Challenges Ahead * * Challenges that still remain: Providing health care, education and job security for all, and achieving gender equality and dignity for the poor. • These will be even bigger tasks. • But despite the progress, poverty reduction remains India’s compelling challenge. • Wide disparities in poverty are visible between rural and urban areas and among different states.
- 41. Cont…. • Certain social and economic groups are more vulnerable to poverty. •Poverty reduction is expected to make better progress in the next ten to fifteen years. • This would be possible mainly due to higher economic growth, increasing stress on universal free elementary education, declining population growth, increasing empowerment of the women and the economically weaker section of society.