Poverty

Poverty is the state of being extremely poor, and it is a situation that people want to escape. The progressive five-year plans of India have laid emphasis on the upliftment of the least fortunate of poor people. Neediness has many aspects. It must be looked at through an assortment of markers like degrees of pay and utilization, social pointers, and signs of weakness to chances and socio-political access. 

Highlights about Poverty 

• Poverty is defined as the lack of financial resources and necessities for a basic standard of living by an individual or community
• Poverty is defined as having an income level from employment that is so low that basic human needs cannot be met
• Poverty, according to the World Bank, is a severe deprivation of well-being that has many dimensions
• It includes low income and the inability to obtain the basic goods and services required for dignified survival
• Poverty also includes a lack of health and education, insufficient access to clean water and sanitation, insufficient physical security, a lack of a voice, and a lack of capacity and opportunity to improve one’s life
• In 2011, 21.9 percent of India’s population lived below the national poverty line
• In 2018, nearly 8% of the world’s workers and their families were living on less than US$1.90 per person per day (international poverty line)

The causes of Poverty are: 

They do not have many resources and live in kutcha cottages with dividers of heated mud and rooftops made of grass, cover, bamboo and wood.

1. In rural areas, mostly the poor are landless or in possession of small patches of wastelands. 
2. They lack access to food leading to hunger and starvation. 
3. They lack basic literacy and skills and hence have minimal economic opportunities. Poor people also face unstable employment. Moreover, they also face unstable work.
4. Lack of nutrition leads to alarming levels of malnutrition and to illness, making them physically weak.
5. Limited economic opportunities, causing vulnerability to be exploited by the employer.
6. They lack access to basic facilities like electricity, cooking fuel, safe drinking water, etc. 
7. Extreme gender inequality is also seen in both economic and social aspects. 
8. Rural poor are primarily the landless agricultural laborers or the cultivators with very small landholdings. 
9. Urban poor are essentially the outflow of the rural poor, migrating to urban areas searching for better opportunities. 

Economists identify the poor based on their occupation and ownership of assets.

The Process of Identifying Different Types of Poverty:

To solve the problem of poverty, the government first needs to identify the poor based on a scale to measure poverty. There were several attempts to develop such a scale to determine poverty.

1. Dadabhai Naoroji was quick to bring up the concept of a Poverty Line. He used the menu for a detainee and proper winning costs to arrive at what could be called the “cost for basic items in an ordinary jail cell”.
2. In any case, only adults are impoverished; however, in a free society, children are also impoverished. As a result, he correctly changed the average cost for essential items to appear at the neediness line.
3. In 1962, the Planning Commission formed a study group to measure poverty.
4. In 1979, another body called the “Team on Projections of Minimum Needs and Effective Consumption Demand” was framed.
5. In 1989 and 2005, “Expert Groups” were also constituted for the same purpose.

To define poverty, people are divided into poor and non-poor. However, there are many kinds of poor and non-poor, due to which any such scale forms a continuum from the exceptionally poor to the rich.

Categorizing Poverty:

1. Chronic poor: People who are always poor and usually poor but may sometimes have a little more money are grouped as the chronic poor. E.g., casual workers.
2. Transient poor: Another group is the protesting helpless who routinely move through destitution. To give you an example, such people are small ranchers and part-time employees, and the infrequently helpless who are rich most of the time but may have a misfortune here and there. They are known as the transient poor.
3. Non-poor: Some are never poor, and they are non-poor.

Conclusion:- 

According to the United Nations’ Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2018, between 2005-06 and 2015-16, 271 million people in India moved out of poverty. Over a ten-year period, the country’s poverty rate has decreased dramatically, dropping from 55% to 28%. In India, a sizable proportion of the population remains impoverished.

Rapid economic growth and the incorporation of technology into social sector programmes have contributed to a significant reduction in the country’s extreme poverty. Despite our rapid growth and development, a sizable proportion of our population. The population continues to face severe and multidimensional deprivation. A more comprehensive and inclusive approach is required to eradicate poverty in India.