International Journal of Research and Review Vol.7; Issue: 1; January 2020 Website: www.ijrrjournal.com Review Article E-ISSN: 2349-9788; P-ISSN: 2454-2237 Problem of Poverty in India Ankuran Alok LL.M. I Semester, Noida International University, Greater Noida ABSTRACT he calls secondary poverty. The recent studies done by Thomas Picketty and Lucas Hegel used to say that “poverty is a social in their essay from British Raj to Billionaire phenomenon’’. Mahatma Gandhi thought that Raj, they argue that the gap between the rich poverty was the worst crime to be committed by and poor in 2013-2014 was the most glaring any civil society. Poverty in India has two one as it had been in 1921-1922. [1] In India, facets, one, social and another socio-economic. Those who are poor socially are generally poor despite several efforts by the government to educationally and economically. Poverty in lift the poor out of the poverty drag, still India is mostly counted in absolute terms. there are millions who don’t have access to According to Damien and Rafi, poverty in India the basic amenities of life. is visible to the naked eye of anyone who tries The intensity of poor and the to understand it. According to them a poor downtrodden in India is a matter of serious cannot afford even to send his children to the concerns for both policy makers and government funded school where primary academia. [2] It is because of its widespread education provided free of any fees. He also implications. In absolute numbers, India could not afford to get his children treated in a accounts for largest number of poor persons primary health care centre run by the amounting to nearly 300 million persons government. Incidence of poverty in India has been highlighted by several economist a few of with a huge percentage of them being forced to live in abject poverty due to socio- them consist of Prof. Amartya Sen, and [3] Jeanedreze, Suresh Tendulkar, N.C. Saxena to economic vulnerabilities. While quote a few. According to them around 25 measuring their plight on the basis of Sen percent populations still live in abject poverty. coefficient and multi-dimensional index, it Even the government of India has conceded that appears that majority of people living urban around 20 crore people in India live in a state of and rural areas still struggle to eke out their abject poverty with no access to portable living. drinking water, sanitation, and two square While defining poverty, economists rely meals. upon subsistence level data which is axiomatic and widely accepted across the Keywords: Poverty, Socio-economic, Government, Population, Social phenomenon world. Indian Poverty Measures: A Chronology INTRODUCTION Poverty lines as determined during One of the ironies of our rapidly the British Raj were flawed an initio simply developing and increasingly progressive because most of such lines were dependent world is that poverty continues to remain upon a contextual sense of adequacy. In widespread and rampant, and the vulnerable 1979, subsistence needs were systematically population seems to have grown ever more linked to nutritional needs and household vulnerable. Ragner Nurske considers that spending patterns. Calorie norms of 2,400 those who are poor remain poor simply per capita per day for rural India and 2,100 because at the mental and physical level for urban India were adopted, and the they suffer from the pangs of poverty, which expenditure equivalents of these norms were identified through the empirical distribution International Journal of Research and Review (ijrrjournal.com) 174 Vol.7; Issue: 1; January 2020 Ankuran Alok. Problem of poverty in india of consumer expenditure from the NSS consumer price index for industrial workers survey of 1973–1974. [4] The studies during (CPIIW) for their urban counterparts. The 1970s conducted my M.S. Ahluwalia, V.N. updating of poverty lines was done purely Gadgil etc. became the new poverty lines on the basis of these cost estimates. [6] for both rural and urban areas in India. Most Over the years, this method lost of these studies assumed that per capita credibility. The price data were flawed and consumption expenditure or household successive poverty lines failed to preserve expenses generally a period of one month or the original calorie norms. Dr. Manmohan one year, was the right statistical choice for Singh government decided to further set up calculating poverty in India. Implicitly, an expert committee with Suresh Tendulkar subsistence was defined as the bundle as its head in 2005 and on the basis of consumed by households at these calorie whose report a new poverty line was levels. published in 2009. The report was officially Poverty alleviation has been on the adopted by the Planning Commission in national policy agenda for more than 2011. The Tendulkar Committee did not seventy years. During the National relate poverty lines to calories. However, for movement the Congress was also working the sake of continuity, it anchored the hard to spell out a future plan for adopting all‐India urban head count for 2004–2005 to the strategy of planned development once 25.7 percent, the official estimate under the India got independence. Accordingly, old procedure. Using this normalization, it in1938, the Indian National Congress set up then arrived at rural and urban poverty lines a National Planning Committee (NPC) for each state using elaborate methods for headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, which made a estimating regional price variations based declaration that the social objective of the on the aggregation of 23 price indices for Indian government should be ‘to ensure an different categories of expenditure. [7] adequate standard of living for the general The latest estimates on poverty masses, in other words, to get rid of the based on National Sample Survey (NSS) appalling poverty of the people’. The data show that poverty in India in 2011-12 importance of reduction in poverty and was around 22 per cent. [8] In other words, provision of other basic needs has been more than 300 million people are still below emphasized in all the five-year plans since poverty line in India. These numbers on independence particularly since the Fifth poverty indicate that the social objective Five-Year Plan. The government concerned declared by the NPC headed by Jawaharlal had adopted a two-pronged strategy, one, Nehru in 1938 is largely unaccomplished promoting economic growth and another even after nearly sixty years of direct action for alleviating poverty. [5] independence. Until the 1990s, no attempt was Poverty has many-sided realities made to capture differences in prices or which one calls multi-dimensional (viz., spending patterns across states. Poverty income poverty and non-income poverty). It estimates were revised with each covers not only levels of income and quinquennial NSS survey and price indices consumption, but also health and education, were used to adjust for price changes over vulnerability and risk, and marginalisation time. In 1993, an expert group set up by the and exclusion of the poor from the Planning Commission recommended mainstream of society. As shown by Dreze state‐specific poverty lines based on and Sen (1995), the performance of India in regional prices, which captured the cost of terms of non-income indicators (such as, living for poor households. For each state, education and health) has not been the new price deflators were the consumer satisfactory. This is not to deny that price index for agricultural labourers progress has certainly been made in (CPIAL) for rural populations and the reduction in poverty has been, however, International Journal of Research and Review (ijrrjournal.com) 175 Vol.7; Issue: 1; January 2020 Ankuran Alok. Problem of poverty in india slow as compared to many other countries, 2004-2005 they constituted 37 percent of particularly those of South-East and East the total population, but 2011-2012 their Asia. percentage declined to 22 percent. In fact, In the post-reform period, there has the above data was culled from the reports been a debate about the impact of reform of the NSSO released by the Ministry of policies on poverty, inequality, and Statistics Programme Implementation. [9] employment. The objective of this chapter is Ever since Tendulkar Committee to put together the evidence on poverty and which used the methodology for poverty income distribution in the pre-and post- estimate mostly on the basis of consumption reform periods. An attempt is also made to expenditure, has since been a source of present the findings of various studies that debate as it leaves out many aspects of have identified the components of reforms poverty such as secondary poverty. having impact on these indicators. We However, Tendulkar Committee used the concentrate on income poverty in this same methodology which had been in chapter. practice ever since early 1970s. [10] Trends in poverty can be examined in two NSSO report of 2011-2012 suggest ways. One way is to directly estimate that despite the decrease in poverty ratio poverty ratios from the NSS consumer across the state, there are very big gap in the expenditure. One can also examine poverty percentage of poor living below the poverty situation indirectly by looking at the trends line in these states. For example, in Bihar in employment, unemployment, and real the poverty ratio fell from 54.4 percent in wages of workers. In this chapter, we will 2004-2005 to 33.7 percent in 2011-2012, concentrate on poverty ratios using NSS but in Arunachal Pradesh instead of it consumer expenditure data. Trends in falling, it rose by 3.6 percent that is, it rose employment and wages will be discussed in from 31.1 percent to 34.7 percent.