POVERTY
INTRODUCTION
In society there are rich and poor people and also the people in between termed as middle class family.
Some of the POORS
Push-cart vendors, street cobblers,women who string flowers, rag pickers,
vendors and beggars are some examples of poor and vulnerable groups in urban areas.
Characteristics of Poor/Poverty
1. Deprived of their own land and even if the land is available, it is dry and waste.
2. Deprived of basic things i.e. food, clothes and shelter.
3. Starvation and Hunger
4. Lack of education and employment
5. Malnutrition, ill health, handicapped etc.
6. No access to electricity
7. No access of safe drinking water
8. Less care during pregnancy time
In society there are rich and poor people and also the people in between termed as middle class family.
Some of the POORS
Push-cart vendors, street cobblers,women who string flowers, rag pickers,
vendors and beggars are some examples of poor and vulnerable groups in urban areas.
Characteristics of Poor/Poverty
1. Deprived of their own land and even if the land is available, it is dry and waste.
2. Deprived of basic things i.e. food, clothes and shelter.
3. Starvation and Hunger
4. Lack of education and employment
5. Malnutrition, ill health, handicapped etc.
6. No access to electricity
7. No access of safe drinking water
8. Less care during pregnancy time
IDENTIFICATION OF POOR PEOPLE
In order to solve the problem of poverty, the first thing is the identification of poor people.
For this there needs to be some criteria and standard procedure should be followed for the identification.
In pre-independent India,
Dadabhai Naoroji was the first to discuss the concept of a Poverty Line.
He used the menu for a prisoner and used appropriate prevailing prices to arrive at what may be called ‘jail cost of living’.
However, only adults stay in jail whereas, in an actual society, there are children too.
For this adjustment, he assumed that one-third population consisted of children
and half of them consumed very little while the other half consumed half of the adult diet.
And in this way, Dadabhai made a conclusion regarding the factor of three-fourths;
(1/6)(Nil) + (1/6)(Half) + (2/3)(Full) = (3/4) (Full).
The weighted average of consumption of the three segments gives the average poverty line,
which becomes three-fourth of the adult jail cost of living.
In post-independent India,
several attempts were made to identify the number of poor in the country.
Few attempts Formation of study group by planning commission in 1962.
‘Task Force on Projections of Minimum Needs and Effective Consumption Demand’ in 1979 .
Formation of ‘Expert Groups’ in 1989 and 2005.
Also different experts of economics has defined the poverty as;
For the purpose of defining poverty, people are divided into two categories;
the poor and the non-poor and both are separated by poverty line.
Also the poor can be categorized as,
poor; the absolutely poor, the very poor and the poor.
Similarly, there are various kinds of non-poor; the middle class, the upper middle class, the rich, the very rich and the absolutely rich.
Categorising Poverty:
1. Chronic Poor:
People who are always poor and those who are usually poor but who may sometimes have a little more money (example: casual workers) are termed as chronic poor. 2. Churning poor
People who regularly move in and out of poverty (example: small farmers and seasonal workers).
3. Transient poor
Poor people who are occasionally poor and rich most of the time but may sometimes have a bad time and luck, then these group of people are termed as transient poor..
Poverty Line
There are many ways of measuring poverty. One of the way is to determine it by the monetary value
(per capita expenditure) of the minimum calorie intake that was estimated at 2,400 calories for a rural person and 2,100 for a person in the urban area.
Based on this in 2011-12, the poverty line was defined for rural areas as consumption worth Rs 816 per person a month and for urban areas it was Rs 1,000.
Measure problem regarding the aforementioned way of measuring poverty
It groups all the poor together and does not differentiate between the very poor and the other poor.
This process explains expenditure only limited to food and lack of basing things as well.
Yes, this process helps in identifying the poor to be taken care by government but becomes very difficult to identify who among the poor need help the most.
The other factors that hasn't been included in this mechanism are;
basic education, health care, drinking water and sanitation.
The poverty line does not includes social factors that affects poverty like illiteracy, ill health, lack of access to resources, discrimination
or lack of civil and political freedoms.
For this there needs to be some criteria and standard procedure should be followed for the identification.
In pre-independent India,
Dadabhai Naoroji was the first to discuss the concept of a Poverty Line.
He used the menu for a prisoner and used appropriate prevailing prices to arrive at what may be called ‘jail cost of living’.
However, only adults stay in jail whereas, in an actual society, there are children too.
For this adjustment, he assumed that one-third population consisted of children
and half of them consumed very little while the other half consumed half of the adult diet.
And in this way, Dadabhai made a conclusion regarding the factor of three-fourths;
(1/6)(Nil) + (1/6)(Half) + (2/3)(Full) = (3/4) (Full).
The weighted average of consumption of the three segments gives the average poverty line,
which becomes three-fourth of the adult jail cost of living.
In post-independent India,
several attempts were made to identify the number of poor in the country.
Few attempts Formation of study group by planning commission in 1962.
‘Task Force on Projections of Minimum Needs and Effective Consumption Demand’ in 1979 .
Formation of ‘Expert Groups’ in 1989 and 2005.
Also different experts of economics has defined the poverty as;
For the purpose of defining poverty, people are divided into two categories;
the poor and the non-poor and both are separated by poverty line.
Also the poor can be categorized as,
poor; the absolutely poor, the very poor and the poor.
Similarly, there are various kinds of non-poor; the middle class, the upper middle class, the rich, the very rich and the absolutely rich.
Categorising Poverty:
1. Chronic Poor:
People who are always poor and those who are usually poor but who may sometimes have a little more money (example: casual workers) are termed as chronic poor. 2. Churning poor
People who regularly move in and out of poverty (example: small farmers and seasonal workers).
3. Transient poor
Poor people who are occasionally poor and rich most of the time but may sometimes have a bad time and luck, then these group of people are termed as transient poor..
Poverty Line
There are many ways of measuring poverty. One of the way is to determine it by the monetary value
(per capita expenditure) of the minimum calorie intake that was estimated at 2,400 calories for a rural person and 2,100 for a person in the urban area.
Based on this in 2011-12, the poverty line was defined for rural areas as consumption worth Rs 816 per person a month and for urban areas it was Rs 1,000.
Measure problem regarding the aforementioned way of measuring poverty
It groups all the poor together and does not differentiate between the very poor and the other poor.
This process explains expenditure only limited to food and lack of basing things as well.
Yes, this process helps in identifying the poor to be taken care by government but becomes very difficult to identify who among the poor need help the most.
The other factors that hasn't been included in this mechanism are;
basic education, health care, drinking water and sanitation.
The poverty line does not includes social factors that affects poverty like illiteracy, ill health, lack of access to resources, discrimination
or lack of civil and political freedoms.
Poverty alleviation programmers (PAP) in India
1. Prime minister’s Rozgar Yojana(PMRY)
This program aims at creating selfemployment opportunities in rural areas & small towns.
Under this program, educated unemployed from low-income families in rural & urban areas can get financial assistance in the form of bank loan.
to set up any kind of enterprise that generates employment.
It attempted to generate employment by setting up seven lakh micro-enterprises during the eighth plan [1992-97].
By 2003-04, 3 million people got employment under the scheme of PMRY.
2. Swarna Jayanthi Shahri Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY):
(Urban self-employment program& the urban wage employment programs are two special schemes of SJSRY, initiated in December 1997)
which replaced various programmers operated earlier, for urban poverty alleviation.
SJRY mainly aims at creating employment opportunities for both selfemployment & wage-employment in urban areas.
3. Swarna Jayanthi Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY):
SGSY is a self-employment program, launched with effect from April 1 199 as a result of restructuring & combining the earlier poverty eradication programmes
like Integrated rural development programme (IRDP), development of women & children in rural areas (DWCRA), etc.
It aims at promoting micro enterprises & to bring the assisted poor families (Swarozagaris) above the poverty line, by organizing them into Self-Help Groups (SHGs).
Under this programme, people who wish to benefit from this scheme are encouraged to form self-help groups (SHG).
Initially they are encouraged to save some money & land among themselves as small loAns.
Later, through banks, the govt. provides partial financial assistance to SHGs which then decide whom the loan is to be given for self-employment activities.
4. Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY):
The scheme was launched with effect from September 2001.
The schemes of Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY)& employment assurance scheme (EAS) has been fully integrated with SGRY.
The scheme aims at providing wage employment in rural areas & food security, along with the creation of durable community social & economic assets.
The centre & the state on the cost sharing ratio of 87.5 : 12.5 .
5. National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005:
The act was passed in 2005 & the scheme, i.e. National rural employment guarantee schemes or NREGS was launched in February 2006.
The aim of the act is to provide guaranteed wages employment to every households.
Under this programme, volunteer adults will be provided unskilled manual work for a minimum of 100 days in a year.
Those cannot be employed employers under this scheme were given wages for those 100 days.
6. Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (PMGY):
This programme was introduced in 2000- 01, with the objective of focusing on village level development in five critical areas:
i. Health
ii. Primary Education
iii. Drinking water
iv. Housing & rural roads
v. Improving quality of life of people in rural areas.
PMGY includes;
a. Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak (PMGSY)
b. Pradhan Mantri gramodya yojna [Gramin awas]
c. Pradhan Mantri gramodya yojna- Rural drinking water project.
7. National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP):
NSAP was introduced on 15th August 1995 for social assistance benefit to poor house hold affected by old age,
death, primary bread earner & maternity care.
The programme has three components
i. National old age pension scheme (NOAPS)
ii. National family benefits scheme (NFBS)
iii. National benefit scheme (NMBS).
Minimum Needs programmers:
The third approach is to provide minimum basic amenities to the people.
India was among the pioneers that it would visualize that through public expenditures on social consumption needs.
(Food grains at subsidized rates, education, health, water supply& sanitation) people’s living standard could be improved.
Programmers under this approach are expected to supplement the consumption of the poor.
Create employments in health & education.
This program aims at creating selfemployment opportunities in rural areas & small towns.
Under this program, educated unemployed from low-income families in rural & urban areas can get financial assistance in the form of bank loan.
to set up any kind of enterprise that generates employment.
It attempted to generate employment by setting up seven lakh micro-enterprises during the eighth plan [1992-97].
By 2003-04, 3 million people got employment under the scheme of PMRY.
2. Swarna Jayanthi Shahri Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY):
(Urban self-employment program& the urban wage employment programs are two special schemes of SJSRY, initiated in December 1997)
which replaced various programmers operated earlier, for urban poverty alleviation.
SJRY mainly aims at creating employment opportunities for both selfemployment & wage-employment in urban areas.
3. Swarna Jayanthi Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY):
SGSY is a self-employment program, launched with effect from April 1 199 as a result of restructuring & combining the earlier poverty eradication programmes
like Integrated rural development programme (IRDP), development of women & children in rural areas (DWCRA), etc.
It aims at promoting micro enterprises & to bring the assisted poor families (Swarozagaris) above the poverty line, by organizing them into Self-Help Groups (SHGs).
Under this programme, people who wish to benefit from this scheme are encouraged to form self-help groups (SHG).
Initially they are encouraged to save some money & land among themselves as small loAns.
Later, through banks, the govt. provides partial financial assistance to SHGs which then decide whom the loan is to be given for self-employment activities.
4. Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY):
The scheme was launched with effect from September 2001.
The schemes of Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY)& employment assurance scheme (EAS) has been fully integrated with SGRY.
The scheme aims at providing wage employment in rural areas & food security, along with the creation of durable community social & economic assets.
The centre & the state on the cost sharing ratio of 87.5 : 12.5 .
5. National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005:
The act was passed in 2005 & the scheme, i.e. National rural employment guarantee schemes or NREGS was launched in February 2006.
The aim of the act is to provide guaranteed wages employment to every households.
Under this programme, volunteer adults will be provided unskilled manual work for a minimum of 100 days in a year.
Those cannot be employed employers under this scheme were given wages for those 100 days.
6. Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (PMGY):
This programme was introduced in 2000- 01, with the objective of focusing on village level development in five critical areas:
i. Health
ii. Primary Education
iii. Drinking water
iv. Housing & rural roads
v. Improving quality of life of people in rural areas.
PMGY includes;
a. Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak (PMGSY)
b. Pradhan Mantri gramodya yojna [Gramin awas]
c. Pradhan Mantri gramodya yojna- Rural drinking water project.
7. National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP):
NSAP was introduced on 15th August 1995 for social assistance benefit to poor house hold affected by old age,
death, primary bread earner & maternity care.
The programme has three components
i. National old age pension scheme (NOAPS)
ii. National family benefits scheme (NFBS)
iii. National benefit scheme (NMBS).
Minimum Needs programmers:
The third approach is to provide minimum basic amenities to the people.
India was among the pioneers that it would visualize that through public expenditures on social consumption needs.
(Food grains at subsidized rates, education, health, water supply& sanitation) people’s living standard could be improved.
Programmers under this approach are expected to supplement the consumption of the poor.
Create employments in health & education.
Thank you for this valuable information very useful. Sampoorna Grameen Yojana
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