Poverty as a Challenge

In our daily life we come across many poor people such as land less labourers in villages, people living in jhuggis, daily wage workers at construction sites, child labourers in dhabas, rickshaw-pullers, domestic servants, cobblers, beggars, etc.

About 30 crore people live in poverty.

Poverty : Usually the levels of income and consumption are used to define poverty. In India, poverty can be defined as the lack of common things like food, clothing and shelter , safe drinking water, medical care  and education, which determine quality of life.

Poverty has both dimensions economical and social.

Other Indicators of Poverty:

Now poverty is looked through other social indicators like illiteracy level, lack of access to health care, lack of job opportunities, lack of access to safe drinking water, sanitation, etc. Nowadays, the concept of social exclusion is becoming very common in the analysis of poverty.

Social exclusion means , generally poor are excluded in the community of better off people.

Vulnerability

Vulnerability describes the greater probability of certain communities  or individuals of becoming, or remaining, poor in the coming years.

The people from backward cast, individuals like widows, physically handicapped are  more vulnerable.

They possess greater risks at the time of natural disasters.

Poverty Line 

It is based on the income or consumption level.

A person is considered poor if his or her income or consumption level falls below a given ‘minimum level’ necessary to satisfy basic needs.

Poverty line varies with time place.

For the year 2009-10, the poverty line for a person was fixed at  Rs.673 per month for rural area and Rs. 860 for the urban areas.

The poverty line is estimated periodically by conducting sample surveys by National Sample Survey Organisation. ( NSSO)

Estimates of Poverty:

The incidence of poverty in India was around 55 per cent in 1973 which declined to 36 per cent in 1993 and further to 26 per cent in 2000.

The poverty in India is reduced percent wise but number wise it is huge.

Social groups which are most vulnerable to poverty are Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe households.

Inequality of Incomes within a Family:

In poor families, old people, women and female children are denied equal access to family’s available resources. They are the poorest of the poor.

Inter-State Disparities :

The proportion of poor people is not the same in every state. In 20 states and union territories the poverty ratio is less than the national average. Orissa and Bihar are the poorest states of India with poverty ratios of 47 per cent and 43 per cent respectively. Lowest incidence of poverty is found in Jammu and Kashmir with poverty ratio of just 3.5 per cent.

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