Essays

Even after more than 60 years of  independence, poverty remains the most serious problems that India faces. India still has the world's largest number of poor people dwelling on its land. Of its population of more than 1.2 billion, an estimated 444 million are below the poverty line, out of which 61 per cent dwell in the rural areas of the country. Most of them are daily workers, landless labourers and self employed householders.

A major percentage of this population is illiterate, with women, tribal and Scheduled Castes particularly being affected in large numbers. Today, one in every three persons living in abject poverty all over the world is an Indian. Poverty is a situation, which gives rise to the discrepancy between what one has and what one should have. Berstein Henry identifies a tew dimensions of poverty such as lack of livelihood strategies, inaccessibility to resources like money, land or credit, feeling of insecurity or frustration and inability to maintain and develop social relations due to lack of resources. The three things that are usually used to define the concept of poverty are—the amount of money required by a person to sustain, the life below a minimum subsistence level and the living standard prevalent at the time, and the comparative state of well-being of a few and the deprivation of the majority in the society. The first two concepts refer to the economic dimensions of poverty whereas the last one to its social needs, In terms of gratifying the basic physiological needs, poverty is measured in terms of an imaginary 'poverty line'. The poverty line serves as a cut-off line for separating the poor from the not-poor, given the size distribution of population by per capita consumer expenditure classes. Population with per capita consumer expenditure levels below the level defined by the poverty line is counted as poor According to a 2005 World Bank estimate, 41.6% of the total Indian population falls below the international poverty line of US$ 1.25. The purchasing power parity (PPP) as per Indian standards is ? 21.6 a day in urban areas and $14.3 in rural areas.

The Planning Commission of India has accepted the Tendulkar Committee report which says that 37% of people in India live below the poverty line.

A study by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative using a Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MP1) found that there were 645 million poor living under the MPI in India, 421 million of whom are concentrated in eight North Indian and East Indian states of Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal- This number is higher than the 410 million poor living in the 26 poorest African nations.

Although the Indian economy has grown steadily over the last two decades, its growth has been uneven. Between 1999 and 2008, the annualized growth rates for Gujarat (8.8%), Haryana (8.7%), or Delhi (7.4%) were much higher than for Bihar (5.1%), Uttar Pradesh (4.4%), or Madhya Pradesh (3.5%). Poverty rates in rural Orissa (43%) and rural Bihar (41%) are among the world's most extreme.

Presence of a massive parallel economy in the form of black (hidden) money stashed in overseas tax havens and underutilization of foreign aid have also contributed to the slow pace of poverty alleviation in India.

The poor can be classified into four groups—the destitute, extremely poor, very poor and poor. Poverty is that condition in which a person fails to not only fulfil his basic physiological needs but also fails to protect himself from diseases, get balanced nutrition, maintain good health etc. In simple terms, a person in order to survive should have proper food, clothing, shelter, health care and education. Thus poverty refers to a person failing to acquire these minimum levels of subsistence and thus suffers from starvation, malnutrition, and diseases. Poverty is in fact not just an economic or a political problem. Due to its debilitating impact, it has now emerged as a major sociological problem. Once caught in the clutches of poverty, the poor finds it hard to break away from the vicious circle. The children of poor families are forced to take up jobs at a tender age to fend for their large families and thus start working in low-payinq jobs at tea stalls or other such places, They are not only deprived of their childhood but education too—adding to the illiterate bulk of the country. Being uneducated hampers their progress as they are doomed to poor for the rest of their lives. Poverty also means lack of proper nutrition, immunity and thus the mortality rate too is high among the poors.

The major cause' of this poverty is not the low rate of economic growth. In fact, statistics reveals that economic prosperity has indeed been very impressive in but it is the distribution of wealth that has been uneven and has caused the problem of poverty. Another major cause of poverty is illiteracy along with unbridled population growth. The population explosion has in fact nullified the effect of the economic progress made by the country in the past half century. The main causes of poverty are illiteracy, and the lopsided economic development of the country. Illiteracy gives rise to the problems of overpopulation and unemployment which in turn aggravates the vicious cycle of poverty. The uneducated masses in turn fail to contribute profitably to the economic growth of the country.

India's growth rate has been around 7-8% but the growth and development has failed to reach to the grass root level. Central grants for programmes like Indira Awas Yojna, which was aimed at providing housing to the poor, have been utter failures due to lack of proper implementation. Eradication of poverty can only be a very long-term goal in India. Poverty alleviation is expected to make better progress in the next 50 years than in the past, as a trickle-down effect of the growing middle class. Increasing stress on education, reservation of seats in government jobs and empowerment of women and the economically weaker sections of society, are also expected to contribute to the alleviation of poverty. The government of India has boon trying its best to remove poverty. Some of the measures which the government has taken to remove rural poverty are Small Farmer's Development Programme, Drought Area Development Programme, Minimum Needs Programme, National Rural Employment Programme and Assurance on Employment. Apart from these, the government has also taken initiative to implement various programs like Nehru Rozgar Yojna, Prime Minister Rozgar Yojna, Urban Basic Services for the Poor Programme and National Social Assistance Programme.

According to a recently released World Bank report, India is on track to meet its poverty reduction goals. However by 2015, an estimated 53 million people will still live in extreme poverty and 23.6% of the population will still live under US$1.25 per day. This number is expected to reduce to 20,3''u or 268 million people by 2020. Unfortunately, the effects of the worldwide recession in 2009 have plunged 100 million more Indians into poverty than there were in 2004, increasing the effective poverty rate from 27,5% to 37.2%. 'Right to work' has been made a fundamental right guaranteeing) 100 days of productive work in a financial year to the adult member of each rural household, who ventures to do an unskilled work. But the problem still remains gasping at the nation. This is due to the fact that despite the efforts of the government, the benefits of these policies have failed to reach to the poorest of the poor and the downtrodden. This may be due to corruption, population explosion, illiteracy etc. All these problems are inter-related. Failure in one leads automatically to the failure of another.

In order to combat this grave problem, first and foremost, there should be a strict check on population increase. Creation of employment opportunities, spread of education, elimination of black money, decentralization of planning, helping women and youth to become self-reliant are some other ways to combat this problem. It is not due to lack of resources or technical assistance that we are failing in achieving our goals but more so due to lack of execution of these plans and programs. One should realize that poverty is not a cause but a result of various other problems, which need to be catered to in order to alleviate the poverty. Poverty is not just economic upliftment of the masses, but it also has a social and political overtone, which is needed to be looked at-to make people socially and politically aware of the problems facing the country.