UNIT
UNIT

III
CURRENT C HALLENGES FACING
INDIAN ECONOMY

THE

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Some of the most challenging issues facing India
today are poverty, development of rural India and
building infrastructure. We are a billion-strong
country today and our human capital is the biggest
asset; it needs investment in health and education.
We also need to understand the concept of
employment and the need for creating more
employment in our country. We will also look at
the implications of development on our environment
and call for sustainable development. There is a
need to critically assess government initiatives in
tackling all these issues each of which has been
taken up separately in this unit.

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4
POVERTY

After studying this chapter, the learners will
•

understand the various attributes of poverty

•

comprehend the diverse dimensions relating to the concept of poverty

•

critically appreciate the way poverty is estimated

•

appreciate and be able to assess existing poverty alleviation programmes.

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No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater
part of the members are poor and miserable.
Adam Smith

4.1 INTRODUCTION
In previous chapters, you have
studied the economic policies that
India has taken in the last six and a
half decades and the outcome of
these policies with relation to the
various developmental indicators.
Providing minimum basic needs to
the people and reduction of poverty
have been the major aims of
independent India. The pattern of
development that the successive five
year plans envisaged laid emphasis
on the upliftment of the poorest of
the poor (Antyodaya), integrating the
poor into the mainstream and
achieving a minimum standard of
living for all.
While addressing the Constituent
Assembly in 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru
had said, “This achievement
(Independence) is but a step, an
opening of opportunity, to the great
triumphs and achievements that
await us… the ending of poverty and
ignorance and disease and inequality
of opportunity.”
However we need to know where
we stand today. Poverty is not only a
challenge for India, as more than onefifth of the world’s poor live in India
alone; but also for the world, where
about 300 million people are not able
to meet their basic needs.
Poverty has many faces, which
have been changing from place to
60

place and across time, and has been
described in many ways. Most often,
poverty is a situation that people
want to escape. So poverty is a call
to action — for the poor and the
wealthy alike — a call to change the
world so that many more may have
enough to eat, adequate shelter,
access to education and health,
protection from violence, and a voice
in what happens in their
communities.
To know what helps to reduce
poverty, what works and what does
not, what changes over time, poverty
has to be defined, measured and
studied — and even experienced. As
poverty has many dimensions, it has
to be looked at through a variety of
indicators — levels of income and
consumption, social indicators, and
indicators of vulnerability to risks
and of socio/political access.

4.2 WHO

ARE THE

P OOR?

You would have noticed that in all
localities and neighbourhoods, both
in rural and urban areas, there are
some of us who are poor and some
who are rich. Read the story of Anu
and Sudha. Their lives are examples
of the two extremes (see Box 4.1).
There are also people who belong to
the many stages in between.
Push cart vendors, street
cobblers, women who string flowers,
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rag pickers, vendors and beggars are
some examples of poor and
vulnerable groups in urban areas.
The poor people possess few assets
and reside in kutcha hutments with
walls made of baked mud and roofs
made of grass, thatch, bamboo and
wood. The poorest of them do not
even have such dwellings. In rural
areas many of them are landless.
Even if some of them possess land, it

is only dry or waste land. Many do
not get to have even two meals a day.
Starvation and hunger are the key
features of the poorest households.
The poor lack basic literacy and skills
and hence have very limited
economic opportunities. Poor people
also face unstable employment.
Malnutrition is alarmingly high
among the poor. Ill health, disability
or serious illness makes them

Box 4.1: Anu and Sudha
Anu and Sudha were both born on the same day. Anu’s mother and father
were construction labourers and Sudha’s father was a businessman and her
mother a designer.
Anu’s mother worked by carrying head loads of bricks until she went into
labour. She then went behind the tool shed on the construction site and
delivered her baby alone. She fed her child and then wrapped her in an old
sari, made a cradle with a gunny sack, put little Anu in it and hung it from a
tree. She hurried back to work as she was afraid she would lose her job. She
hoped that Anu would sleep until evening.
Sudha was born in one of the best nursing homes in the city. She was
thoroughly checked by doctors, she was bathed and dressed in clean soft
clothes and placed in a crib next to her mother. Her mother fed her whenever
she was hungry, hugged and kissed her and sang her to sleep. Her family
and friends celebrated her arrival.
Anu and Sudha had very different childhoods. Anu learnt to look after
herself at a very early age. She knew what hunger and deprivation were. She
discovered how to pick food from the dustbin, how to keep warm during the
winter, to find shelter in the monsoon and how to play with a piece of string,
stones and twigs. Anu could not go to school as her parents were migrant
workers who kept moving from city to city in search of work.
Anu loved to dance. Whenever she heard music she would improvise. She
was very beautiful and her movements were graceful and evocative. Her dream
was to dance on a stage some day. Anu could have become a great dancer
but she had to begin work at the age of 12. She had to earn a living with her
mother and father, building houses for the rich. Houses, she would never live in.
Sudha went to a very good play school where she learnt how to read,
write and count. She went on excursions to the planetarium, museum and
national parks. She later went to a very good school. She loved painting and
started getting private lessons from a famous artist. She later joined a design
school and became a well known painter.

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physically weak. They
borrow from money
lenders who charge high
rates of interest that
lead them into chronic
indebtedness. The poor
are highly vulnerable.
They are not able to
negotiate their legal
wages from employers
and are exploited. Most
poor households have
no access to electricity.
Their primary cooking
fuel is firewood and cow
Fig. 4.2 Many poor families live in kutcha houses
dung cake. A large
section of poor people
Economists identify the poor on
do not even have access to safe
the
basis of their occupation and
drinking water. There is evidence of
ownership
of assets. They state that
extreme gender inequality in the
the rural poor work mainly as
participation of gainful employment,
landless agricultural labourers,
education and in decision-making
cultivators with very
small
within the family. Poor women receive
landholdings,
landless
labourers
less care on their way to
who are engaged in a variety of
motherhood. Their children are less
non-agricultural jobs and tenant
likely to survive or be born healthy.
cultivators with small land holdings.
The urban poor are
largely the overflow
of the rural poor
who had migrated
to urban areas in
search of alternative
employment
and
livelihood, labourers
who do a variety of
casual jobs and the
self-emloyed who sell
a variety of things on
roadsides and are
engaged in various
Fig. 4.1 Majority of agricultural labourers are poor
activities.
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Box 4.2 : What is Poverty?
Two scholars, Shaheen Rafi Khan and Damian Killen, put the conditions of
the poor in a nutshell: Poverty is hunger. Poverty is being sick and not being
able to see a doctor. Poverty is not being able to go to school and not knowing
how to read. Poverty is not having a job. Poverty is fear for the future, having
food once in a day. Poverty is losing a child to illness, brought about by unclear
water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and fr eedom.
What do you think?

4.3 HOW ARE POOR PEOPLE IDENTIFIED ?
If India is to solve the problem of
poverty, it has to find viable and
sustainable strategies to address the
causes of poverty and design schemes
to help the poor out of their situation.
However, for these schemes to be
implemented, the government needs
to be able to identify who the poor are.
For this there is need to develop a
scale to measure poverty, and the
factors that make up the criteria for
this measurement or mechanism need
to be carefully chosen.
I n pr e - i n d e p e n d e n t I n d i a ,
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. He, therefore,
appropriately adjusted this cost of
living to arrive at the poverty line.

For this adjustment, he assumed
that one-third population consisted
o f c h i l d r e n a n d h a l f o f them
consumed very little while the other
half consumed half of the adult
diet. This is how he arrived at 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 comes out to be three-fourth
of the adult jail cost of living.
In post-independent India, there
have been several attempts to work
out a mechanism to identify the
number of poor in the country. For
instance, in 1962, the Planning
Commission formed a Study Group.
In 1979, another body called the
‘Task Force on Projections of
Minimum Needs and Effective
Consumption Demand’ was formed.
In 1989 and 2005, ‘Expert Groups’
were constituted for the same purpose.

Chart 4.1: Poverty Line

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Besides Planning Commission, many
individual economists have also
attempted to develop such a
mechanism.
For the purpose of defining
poverty we divide people into two
categories; the poor and the non-poor
and the poverty line separates the
two. However, there are many kinds
of 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. Think of this as a line
or continuum from the very poor to
the absolutely rich with the poverty
line dividing the poor from the nonpoor.
Categorising Poverty: There are many
ways to categorise poverty. In one such
way people who are always poor and
those who are usually poor but who
may sometimes have a little more
money (example: casual workers) are
grouped together as the chronic poor.
Another group are the churning poor
who regularly move in and out of

poverty (example: small farmers
and seasonal workers) and the
occasionally poor who are rich most
of the time but may sometimes have a
patch of bad luck. They are called the
transient poor. And then there are
those who are never poor and they are
the non-poor (Chart 4.2).
T h e P o v e r t y L i n e : Now let us
examine how to determine the
poverty line. There are many ways of
measuring poverty. One 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
2009-10, the poverty line was defined
for rural areas as consumption worth
Rs 673 per person a month and for
urban areas it was Rs 860.
Though the government uses
Monthly Per Capita Expenditure (MPCE)
as proxy for income of households to
identify the poor, do you think this
mechanism satisfactorily identifies the
poor households in our country?

Chart 4.2: The Chronic Poor, T ransient Poor and Non-Poor

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Economists state that a major
problem with this mechanism is that it
groups all the poor together and does
not differentiate between the very poor
and the other poor (See chart 4.2). Also
this mechanism takes into account
expenditure on food and a few select
items as proxy for income, economists
question its basis. This mechanism is
helpful in identifying the poor as a
group to be taken care of by the
government, but it would be difficult to
identify who among the poor need help
the most.
There are many factors, other than
income and assets, which are associated
with poverty; for instance, the
accessibility to basic education, health
care, drinking water and sanitation.
They need to be considered to develop
Poverty Line. The existing mechanism
for determining the Poverty Line also
does not take into consideration social
factors that trigger and perpetuate
poverty such as illiteracy, ill health,
lack of access to resources,
discrimination or lack of civil and
political freedoms. The aim of poverty
alleviation schemes should be to
improve human lives by expanding the
range of things that a person could be
and could do, such as to be healthy and
well-nourished, to be knowledgeable
and participate in the life of a
community. From this point of view,
development is about removing the
obstacles to the things that a person
can do in life, such as illiteracy, ill
health, lack of access to resources,

or lack of civil and political
freedoms.
Though the government claims that
higher rate of growth, increase in
agricultural production, providing
employment in rural areas and
economic reform packages introduced
in the 1990s have resulted in a decline
in poverty levels, economists raise
doubts about the government’s claim.
They point out that the way the data
are collected, items that are included
in the consumption basket,
methodology followed to estimate the
poverty line and the number of poor
are manipulated to arrive at the
reduced figures of the number of poor
in India.
Due to various limitations in the
official estimation of poverty, scholars
have attempted to find alternative
methods. For instance, Amartya Sen,
noted Nobel Laureate, has developed
an index known as Sen Index. There
are other tools such as Poverty Gap
Index and Squared Poverty Gap. You
will learn about these tools in higher
classes.

4.4 THE NUMBER

OF

POOR

IN

INDIA

When the number of poor is
estimated as the proportion of
people below the poverty line, it is
known as ‘Head Count Ratio’.
Yo u m i g h t b e i n t e re s t e d i n
knowing the total number of poor
persons residing in India. Where do
they reside and has their number or
proportion declined over the years or

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Work These Out
Ø In Sections 4.2 and 4.3, you will notice that the poor are identified not only
with income and expenditure related indicators but also with many other
items such as access to land, housing, education, health, sanitation. Also
to be considered is discriminatory practices. Discuss how an alternative
poverty line could be constructed in such a way that it includes all the
other indicators.
Ø On the basis of the given definition for poverty line, find out whether people
who work as domestic help, dhobies and newspaper vendors etc. in your
locality/neighbourhood are above the poverty line or not.

not? When such a comparative
analysis of poor people is made
in terms of ratios and percentages,
we will have an idea of different
levels of poverty of people and
their distribution; between states and
over time.
The official data on poverty is
made available to the public by the
Planning Commission. It is

estimated on the basis of consumption
expenditure data collected by the
National Sample Survey Organisation
(NSSO). Chart 4.3 shows the number
of poor and their proportion to the
population in India for the years 19732012. In 1973-74, more than 320
million people were below the poverty
line. In 2011-12, this number has
come down to about 270 million.

Chart 4.3: Trends in Poverty in India, 1973–2012

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In terms of proportion, in 1973-74,
about 55 per cent of the total
population was below the poverty line.
In 2011-12, it has fallen to 22 per cent.
In 1973-74, more than 80 per cent
of the poor resided in rural areas and
this situation has not changed even in
2011-12. This means that more than
three-fourth of the poor in India still
reside in villages. Why do you think this
is the case?
In the 1990s, the absolute
number of poor in rural areas had
declined whereas the number of their
urban counterparts increased
marginally. The poverty ratio declined

continuously for both urban and
rural areas. From Chart 4.3, you will
notice that during 1973-2012, there
has been a decline in the number of
poor and their proportion but the
nature of decline in the two
parameters is not encouraging. The
ratio is declining much slower than
the absolute number of poor in the
country. You will also notice that
the gap between the absolute
number of poor in rural and urban
areas got reduced whereas in the
case of ratio the gap has remained
the same until 1999-2000 and has
widened in 2011-12.

Chart 4.4: Population Below Poverty Line in Some Large States, 1973-2012 (%)

Note: For the year 1973, Uttar Pradesh includes the present Uttarakhand;
Madhya Pradesh includes Chhattisgarh and Bihar includes Jharkhand.

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The state level trends in poverty are
shown in Chart 4.4. The two lines in
the chart indicate the national poverty
level. The first line from below indicates
poverty level during 2011-12 and the
other line indicates the same for the
year 1973-74. This means, the
proportion of poor in India during
1973-2012 has come down from 55 to
22 per cent. The chart also reveals that
six states - Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal
and Orissa - contained a large section
of poor in 1973-74. During 19732012, many Indian states reduced the
poverty levels to a considerable extent.
Yet, the poverty levels in four states Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and
Uttar Pradesh are still far above the
national poverty level. You may notice
West Bengal and Tamil Nadu reduced
poverty level much better than other
states. How come they were able to do
much better than other states?

4.5 WHAT CAUSES P OVERTY?
The causes of poverty lie in the
institutional and social factors that
mark the life of the poor. The poor are
deprived of quality education and
unable to acquire skills which
fetch better incomes. Also access to
health care is denied to the poor. The
main victims of caste, religious and
other discriminatory practices are
poor. These can be caused as a result
of (i) social, economic and political
inequality (ii) social exclusion (iii)
unemployment (iv) indebtedness (v)
unequal distribution of wealth.
68

Aggregate poverty is just the sum of
individual poverty. Poverty is also
explained by general, economy-wide
problems, such as (i) low capital
formation (ii) lack of infrastructure
(iii) lack of demand (iv) pressure
of population (v) lack of social/
welfare nets.
In Chapter 1 you have read
about the British rule in India.
Although the final impact of the
British rule o n I n d i a n l i v i n g
standards is still being debated, there
is no doubt that there was a
substantial negative impact on the
Indian economy and standard of
living of the people. There was
substantial de-industrialisation in
India under the British rule. Imports
of manufactured cotton cloth from
Lancashire in England displaced
much local production, and India
reverted to being an exporter of
cotton yarn, not cloth.
As over 70 per cent of Indians
w e r e engaged i n a g r i c u l t u r e
throughout the British Raj period,
the impact on that sector was more
important on living standards than
anything else. British policies
involved sharply raising rural taxes
that enabled merchants and
moneylenders to become large
landowners. Under the British,
India began to export food grains
and, as a result, as many as 26
million people died in famines
between 1875 and 1900.
Britain’s main goals from the Raj
were to provide a market for British
exports, to have India service its
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debt payments to Britain,
and for India to provide
manpower for the British
imperial armies.
The British Raj impoverished
millions of people in India. Our
natural resources were
plundered, our industries
worked to produce goods at
low prices for the British and
our food grains were exported.
Many died due to famine and
hunger. In 1857-58, anger at
the overthrow of many local
leaders, extremely high taxes
imposed on peasants, and
Fig. 4.4 Low quality self-employment sustains poverty
other resentments boiled over
in a revolt against British rule
and the land holdings were too small
by the sepoys, Indian troops
to be viable. Also most of the Indian
commanded by the British.
states failed to implement land
Even today agriculture is the
redistribution policies.
principal means of livelihood and
A large section of the rural poor
land is the primary asset of rural
in India are the small farmers. The
people; ownership of land is an
land that they have is, in general,
important determinant of material
less fertile and dependent on
well-being and those who own some
rains. Their survival depends on
land have a better chance to improve
subsistence crops and sometimes
their living conditions.
on livestock. With the rapid growth
Since independence, the government
of population and without
alternative sources of employment,
has attempted to redistribute land and
has taken land from those who have
the per-head availability of land for
large amounts to distribute it to those
cultivation has steadily declined
leading to fragmentation of land
who do not have any land, but work
on the land as wage labourers.
holdings. The income from these
small land holdings is not sufficient
However, this move was successful
to meet the family’s basic
only to a limited extent as large
requirements.
sections of agricultural workers were
You must have heard about
not able to farm the small holdings
farmers committing suicide due to
that they now possessed as they did
their inability to pay back the loans
not have either money (assets) or
that they have taken for cultivation
skills to make the land productive
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in India are largely the overflow
of the rural poor who migrate
to urban areas in search
of employment and a livelihood.
Industrialisation has not been
able to absorb all these people.
The urban poor are either
unemployed or intermittently
employed as casual labourers.
Casual labourers are among the
most vulnerable in society as
they have no job security, no
assets, limited skills, sparse
opportunities and no surplus to
Fig. 4.5 Quality employment is still a dream for the poor sustain them.
Poverty is, therefore, also
and other domestic needs as their
closely
related to nature of
crops have failed due to drought or
employment. Unemployment or under
other natural calamities (see Box 4.3).
employment and the casual and
Most members of scheduled castes
intermittent nature of work in both
and scheduled tribes are not able to
rural and urban areas that compels
participate in the emerging employment
indebtedness, in turn, reinforces
opportunities in different sectors of the
poverty. Indebtedness is one of the
urban and rural economy as they do not
significant factors of poverty.
have the necessary knowledge and skills
A steep rise in the price of food
to do so.
A large section of urban poor
grains and other essential goods, at
Work These Out

Ø You may come across washer men and barbers in your neighbourhood. Spare
a few moments and speak to a few of them. Collect details about what made
them to take up this activity, where they live with their family members,
number of meals they are able to consume in a day, whether they possess
any physical assets and why they could not take up a job. Discuss the details
that you have collected in the classroom.
Ø List the activities of people in rural and urban areas separately. You may
also list the activities of the non-poor. Compare the two and discuss in the
classroom why the poor are unable to take up such activities.

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Box 4.3: Distress Among Cotton Farmers
Many small land owning farmers and farming households and weavers are descending
into poverty due to globalisation related shock and lack of perceived income earning
opportunities in relatively well performing states in India. Where households have
been able to sell assets, or borrow, or generate income from alternative employment
opportunities, the impact of such shocks may
be transient. However, if the household has no
assets to sell or no access to credit, or is able to
borrow only at exploitative rates of interest and
gets into a severe debt trap, the shocks can have
long duration ramification in terms of pushing
households below the poverty line. The worst
form of this crisis is suicides. The count reached
3,000 in Andhra Pradesh alone and is rising. In
December 2005, the Maharashtra government
admitted that over 1,000 farmers have committed
suicides in the state since 2001.
India has the largest area under cotton
cultivation in the world covering 8,300 hectares
in 2002–03. The low yield of 300 kg per hectare
pushes it into third position in production. High
production costs, low and unstable yields,
decline in world prices, global glut in production
due to subsidies by the U.S.A. and other Shantabai, wife of Neelakanta
countries, and opening up of the domestic Sitaram Khoke who committed
market due to globalisation have increased the suicide in Yavatma, Maharashtra
exposure of farmers and led to agrarian distress
and suicides especially in the cotton belt of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. The
issue is not one of profits and higher returns but that of the livelihood and survival
of millions of small and marginal farmers who are dependent on agriculture.
Scholars cite several factors that have led farmers to commit suicides (i) the
shift from traditional farming to the farming of high yielding commercial crops without
adequate technical support combined with withdrawal of the state in the area of
agricultural extension services in providing counselling on farm technologies,
problems faced, immediate remedial steps and lack of timely advice to farmers (ii)
decline in public investment in agriculture in the last two decades (iii) low rates of
germination of seeds provided by large global firms, spurious seeds and pesticides by
private agents (iv) crop failure, pest attack and drought (v) debt at very high interest
rate of 36 per cent to 120 per cent from private money lenders (vi) cheap imports
leading to decline in pricing and profits (vii) lack of access to water for crops which
forced the farmers to borrow money at exorbitant rates of interest to sink borewells
that failed.
Sources: Excerpted from A.K. Mehta and Sourabh Ghosh assited by Ritu Elwadhi,
“Globalisation, Loss of Livelihoods and Entry into Poverty,” Alternative Economic
Survey, India 2004-2005, Alternative Survey Group, Daanish Books, Delhi 2005
and P. Sainath, The swelling ‘Register of Deaths’, The Hindu, 29 December 2005.
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a rate higher than the price of luxury
g o o d s , f u r t h e r i n t e n s i fies t h e
hardship and deprivation of lower
income groups. The unequal
distribution of income and assets has
also led to the persistence of poverty
in India.
All this has created two distinct
groups in society: those who posses
the means of production and earn
good incomes and those who have
only their labour to trade for survival.
Over the years, the gap between the
rich and the poor in India has widened.
Poverty is a multi-dimensional
challenge for India that needs to be
addressed on a war footing.

4 .6 P O L I C I E S A N D P R O G R A M M E S
TOW ARDS POVER TY ALLEVIATION
The Indian Constitution and five
year plans state social justice as
the primary objective of the
developmental strategies of the
government. To quote the First Five
Year Plan (1951-56), “the urge to
bring economic and social change
under present conditions comes from
the fact of poverty and inequalities in
income, wealth and opportunity”.
The Second Five Year Plan (1956-61)
also pointed out that “the benefits of
economic development must accrue
more and more to the relatively less
privileged classes of society”. One can
find, in all policy documents,
emphasis being laid on poverty
alleviation and that various
strategies need to be adopted by the
government for the same.
72

The government’s approach to
poverty reduction was of three
dimensions. The first one is growthoriented approach. It is based on the
expectation that the effects of
economic growth — rapid increase in
gross domestic product and per
capita income — would spread to all
sections of society and will trickle
down to the poor sections also. This
was the major focus of planning
in the 1950s and early 1960s.
It was felt that rapid industrial
development and transformation
of agriculture through green
revolution in select regions would
benefit the underdeveloped regions
and the more backward sections of
the community. You must have read
in Chapters 2 and 3 that the overall
growth and growth of agriculture
and industry have not been
impressive. Population growth has
resulted in a very low growth in per
capita incomes. The gap between
poor and rich has actually widened.
The Green Revolution exacerbated the
disparities regionally and between
large and small farmers. There was
unwillingness and inability to
redistribute land. Economists state
that the benefits of economic growth
have not trickled down to the poor.
While looking for alternatives to
specifically address the poor, policy
makers started thinking that
incomes and employment for the
poor could be raised through the
creation of additional assets and by
means of work generation. This
could be achieved through specific
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Fig. 4.6 Wage employment under ‘Food for Work’ programme

poverty alleviation programmes.
This second approach has been
initiated from the Third Five Year
Plan (1961-66) and progressively
enlarged since then. One of the noted
programmes initiated in the 1970s
was Food for Work.
Most
poverty
alleviation
programmes implemented are based
on the perspective of the Five Year
Plans. Expanding self-employment
programmes and wage employment
programmes are being considered as
the major ways of addressing poverty.
Examples of self-employment
programmes are Rural Employment
Generation Programme (REGP), Prime
Minister’s Rozgar Yojana (PMRY) and
Swar na Jayanti Shahari Rozgar

Yojana (SJSRY). The first programme
aims at creating self-employment
opportunities in urban areas. The Khadi
and Village Industries Commission is
implementing it. Under this programme,
one can get financial assistance in the
form of bank loans to set up small
industries. The educated unemployed
from low-income families in rural and
urban areas can get financial help to
set up any kind of enterprise that
generates employment under PMRY.
SJSRY mainly aims at creating
employment opportunities —both selfemployment and wage employment—in
urban areas.
Earlier, under self-employment
programmes, financial assistance was
given to families or individuals. Since

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the 1990s, this approach has been
changed. Now those who wish to
benefit from these programmes are
encouraged to form self-help groups.
Initially they are encouraged to save
some money and lend among
themselves as small loans. Later,
through banks, the government
provides partial financial assistance
to SHGs which then decide whom
the loan is to be given to for selfemployment activities. Swarnajayanti
Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) is one
such programme. This has now been
restructured as National Rural
Livelihoods Mission (NRLM). A similar
programme called National Urban
Livelihoods Mission has also been in
place for urban poor.
The government has a variety of
programmes to generate wage
employment for the poor unskilled
people living in rural areas. In August
2005, the Parliament passed a new Act
to provide guaranteed wage employment
to every rural household whose adult
volunteer is to do unskilled manual
work for a minimum of 100 days in a
year. This Act is known as Mahatma
Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act. Under this Act all those
among the poor who are ready to work
at the minimum wage can report for
work in areas where this programme is
implemented. In 2013-14, nearly five
crore households got employment
opportunities under this law.
The third approach to addressing
poverty is to provide minimum basic
amenities to the people. India was
among the pioneers in the world to
envisage that through public
74

expenditure on social consumption
needs — provision of food grains at
subsidised rates, education, health,
water supply and sanitation—people’s
living standard could be improved.
Programmes under this approach are
expected to supplement the consumption
of the poor, create employment
opportunities and bring about
improvements in health and education.
One can trace this approach from the
Fifth Five Year Plan, “even with expanded
employment opportunities, the poor will
not be able to buy for themselves all the
essential goods and services. They have
to be supplemented up to at least certain
minimum standards by social
consumption and investment in the
form of essential food grains,
education, health, nutrition, drinking
water, housing, communications and
electricity.” Three major programmes
that aim at improving the food and
nutritional status of the poor are Public
Distribution System, Integrated Child
Development Scheme and Midday Meal
Scheme. Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak
Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya
Yojana, Valmiki Ambedkar Awas
Yojana are also attempts in the same
direction. It may be essential to briefly
state that India has achieved
satisfactory progress in many aspects.
The government also has a variety
of other social security programmes
to help a few specific groups. National
Social Assistance Programme is one
such programme initiated by the
central government. Under this
programme, elderly people who do
not have anyone to take care of them
are given pension to sustain
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Work These Out
Ø Discuss and then develop a list of three employment opportunities each
that can arise in coastal areas, deserts, hilly tribal areas, tribal areas
under : (i) Food for Work Pr ogramme and (ii) self-employment.
Ø Many policy documents, five year plan documents, economic
surveys are available in the website of Planning Commission
(www.planningcommission.nic.in). Some of them could be available in
your school or public library also. In these documents, the initiatives
taken by the government and their evaluation are available. Read a
few of them and discuss in the classroom.
Ø In your area or neighbourhood, you will find developmental works such
as laying of roads, construction of buildings in government hospitals,
government schools etc. Visit such sites and prepare a two-three page
report on the nature of work, how many people are getting employed,
wages paid to the labourers etc.
Ø Based on the report of the developmental work (NREGA for example),
critically review the government policy document associated with it.

themselves. Poor women who are
destitute and widows are also
covered under this scheme. The
government has also introduced a few
schemes to provide health insurance to
poor people.

4.7 POVERTY A L L E V I A T I O N
P R O G R A M M E S — A CR I T I C A L
AS S E S S M E N T
Efforts at poverty alleviation have borne
fruit in that for the first time since
independence, the percentage of
absolute poor in some states is now
well below the national average.
Despite various strategies to alleviate
poverty, hunger, malnourishment,
illiteracy and lack of basic amenities
continue to be a common feature
in many parts of India. Though the
policy towards poverty alleviation

has evolved in a progressive manner,
over the last five and a half decades,
it has not undergone any radical
transformation. You can find
change in nomenclature, integration
or mutations of programmes.
H o w e v e r, n o n e re s u l t e d i n a n y
radical change in the ownership of
assets, process of production and
improvement of basic amenities
to the needy. Scholars, while
assessing these programmes, state
three major areas of concern which
prevent
their
successful
implementation. Due to unequal
distribution of land and other assets,
the benefits from direct poverty
alleviation programmes have been
a p p ro p r i a t e d b y t h e n o n - p o o r.
Compared to the magnitude of
poverty, the amount of resources

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Box 4.4: Ramdas Korwa’s Road to Nowhere
Somehow, Ramdas Korwa of Rachketha village was not overjoyed to learn
that he was worth Rs l7.44 lakh to the government. Late in 1993, the
authorities decided to lay a three km road leading to Rachketha village in the
name of tribal development by allocating Rs 17.44 lakh towards the project.
Tribals constitute a 55 per cent majority in Surguja, one of India’s poorest
districts. And the Pahadi or Hill Korwas, who have been listed as a primitive
tribe by the government, fall in the bottom 5 per cent. Special efforts are
underway for their development which often involves large sums of money.
Just one centrally funded scheme, the Pahadi Korwa project, is worth Rs 42
crores over a five-year period.
There are around 15,000 Pahadi Korwas, the largest number of these in
Sur guja. However, for political reasons, the main base of the project is in
Raigad district. There was just one small problem about building the Pahadi
Korwa Marg in Rachketha—the village is almost completely devoid of Pahadi
Korwas. Ramdas’s family is the only real exception.
‘It doesn’t matter if these don’t benefit the Pahadi Korwas in the least and
are completely useless. Out here, even if you put up a swimming pool and a
bungalow, you do it in the name of tribal development,’ says an NGO activist.
‘Nobody bothered to check whether there were really any Pahadi Korwas living
in Rachketha village’ and ‘there was already a kutcha road here,’ says
Ramavatar Korwa, son of Ramdas. ‘They just added lal mitti (red earth) to it.
Even today, after spending Rs 17.44 lakh, it is not a pucca road.’
Ramdas’s own demands ar e touchingly simple. ‘All I want is a little water,’
he says. ‘How can we have agriculture without water?’ When repeatedly
pressed, he adds: ‘Instead of spending Rs 17.44 lakh on that road, if they had
spent a few thousand on improving that damaged well on my land, wouldn’t
that have been better? Some improvement in the land is also necessary, but
let them start by giving us a little water.’
Ramdas’s problems were ignored. The government’s problem was ‘fulfilling
a target’. ‘If the money were simply put into bank fixed deposits, none of these
Pahadi Korwa families would ever have to work again. The interest alone would
make them very well off by Surguja’s standards’, says an official mockingly.
Nobody thought of asking Ramdas what he really needed, what his
problems were, or involving him in their solution. Instead, in his name, they
built a road he does not use, at a cost of Rs17.44 lakh. ‘Please do something
about my water pr oblem, sir,’ says Ramdas Korwa as we set off across the
plain, journeying two km to reach his road to nowhere.
Sour ce: Excerpted from P. Sainath, 1996, Everybody Loves a Good Drought:
Stories from India’s Poorest Districts, Penguin Books, New Delhi.

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just above the poverty line. It also
reveals that high growth alone is not
sufficient to reduce poverty. Without
the active participation of the poor,
successful implementation of any
programme is not possible.
Poverty can effectively be eradicated
only when the poor start contributing
to growth by their active involvement
in the growth process. This is
possible through a process of social
mobilisation, encouraging poor people
to participate and get them empowered.
This will also help create employment
opportunities which may lead to
increase in levels of income, skill
development, health and literacy.
Moreover, it is necessary to identify
poverty stricken areas and provide
infrastructure such as schools, roads,
power, telecom, IT services, training
institutions etc.
Fig. 4.7 Scrap collector: mismangament of
employment planning forces people to
take up very low paying jobs

allocated for these programmes is not
sufficient. Moreover, these programmes
depend mainly on government and
bank officials for their implementation.
Since such officials are ill motivated,
inadequately trained, corruption prone
and vulnerable to pressure from a
variety of local elites, the resources
are inefficiently used and wasted.
There is also non-participation of local
level institutions in programme
implementation.
Government policies have also
failed to address the vast majority of
vulnerable people who are living on or

4.8 C ONCLUSION
We have travelled about six decades
since independence. The objective of
all our policies had been stated as
promoting rapid and balanced
economic development with equality
and social justice. Poverty alleviation
has always been accepted as one of
India’s main challenges by the
policy makers, regardless of which
gover n m e n t w a s i n p o w e r. The
absolute number of poor in the country
has gone down and some states have
less proportion of poor than even the
national average. Yet, critics point out
that even though vast resources
have been allocated and spent, we
are still far from reaching the goal.

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There is improvement in terms of per
capita income and average standard
of living; some progress towards
meeting the basic needs has been
made. But when compared to the
progress made by many other
countries, our performance has not
been impressive. Moreover, the fruits
of development have not reached all

sections of the population. Some
sections of people, some sectors of
the economy, some regions of the
country can compete even with
developed countries in terms of
social and economic development,
yet, there are many others who have
not been able to come out of the
vicious circle of poverty.

Recap
Ø Reducing poverty has been one of the major objectives of India’s
developmental strategies.
Ø The per capita consumption expenditure level which meets the average
per capita daily requirement of 2,400 calories in rural areas and 2,100
calories in urban areas, along with a minimum of non-food expenditure,
is called poverty line or absolute poverty.
Ø When the number of poor and their proportion is compared, we will have
an idea of different levels of poverty of people and their distribution between
states and over time.
Ø The number of poor in India and their proportion to total population has
declined substantially. For the first time in the 1990s, the absolute
number of poor has declined.
Ø Majority of poor are residing in rural areas and engage themselves in
casual and unskilled jobs.
Ø Income and expenditure oriented approaches do not take into account
many other attributes of the poor people.
Ø Over the years, the government has been following three approaches to
reduce poverty in India: growth oriented development, specific poverty
alleviation programmes and meeting the minimum needs of the poor.
Ø Government initiatives are yet to transform the ownership of assets,
processes of production and meet the basic amenities of the poor.

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EXERCISES

1.

Why calorie - based norm is not adequate to identify the poor?

2.

What is meant by ‘Food for Work’ programme?

3.

Why are employment generation programmes important in poverty
alleviation in India?

4.

How can creation of income earning assets address the problem
of poverty?

5.

The three dimensional attack on poverty adopted by the government has not succeded in poverty alleviation in India. Comment.

6.

What programmes has the government adopted to help the
elderly people and poor and destitute women?

7.

Is there any relationship between unemployment and poverty?
Explain.

8.

Suppose you are from a poor family and you wish to get help from
the government to set up a petty shop. Under which scheme will
you apply for assistance and why?

9.

Illustrate the difference between rural and urban poverty. Is it
correct to say that poverty has shifted from rural to urban areas?
Use the trends in poverty ratio to support your answer.

10.

Suppose you are a resident of a village, suggest a few measures
to tackle the problem of poverty.

SUGGESTED ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES

1.

Collect data from 30 persons of your locality regarding their daily
consumption of various commodities. Then rank the persons on
the basis of relatively better off and worse, to get the degree of
relative poverty.

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2.

Collect information and fill in the following table with the amount of
money spent in terms of rupees by four low income families on
various commodities. Analyse the research and f ind out which
family is relatively poor in comparison to the other families. Also
find out who are absolutely poor if the poverty line is fixed at an
expenditure of Rs 500 per month per person.
Commodities
Wheat/Rice
Vegetable Oil
Sugar
Electricity/
Lighting
Ghee
Clothes
House Rent

2.

Family A

Family C

Family D

The following table shows the average monthly expenditure per
person on items of consumption in India and Delhi slums in terms
of percentage. ‘Rice and wheat’ in rural areas at 25 per cent
means that for every 100 rupees spent, Rs 25 goes towards the
purchase of rice and wheat alone. Read the table further and
answer the questions that follow.

Items
Rice and wheat
Pulses and their products
Milk and milk products
Vegetables and fruits
Meat, fish and eggs
Sugar
Salt and spices
Other food items
Total: All food
Expenditure on food
items as a % of all items

•
•
•
•

80

Family B

Rural
25.0
5.7
17.4
15.1
6.3
3.3
10.8
16.5
100
62.9

Urban
35.9
6.1
14.1
12.7
5.3
3.8
10.8
11.3
100
72.2

Delhi Slums
28.7
9.9
10.3
19.6
13.1
4.0
8.1
6.4
100
72.8

Compare the percentage of expenditure on food items among
different groups and their priorities.
Do you think households in slums are depending more on cereals
and pulses?
On which item do people living in different areas spend the least?
Compare them.
Do you think that s lum dwellers have given more emphasis to
meat, fish and eggs?
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REFERENCES

Books
D ANDEKAR , V.M. and N ILAKANTHA R ATH. 1971. Poverty in India , Indian School
of Political Economy, Pune.
D REZE, JEAN. AMAR TYA SEN & A KTHAR HUSAIN (Eds.). 1995 . The Political Economy
of Hunger. Clar endon Press, Oxfor d.
NAOROJI, D ADABHAI. 1996. Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, Publications
Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of
India, Second Edition , New Delhi.
S AINATH, P. 1996 . Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India’s
Poorest Districts . Penguin Books, New Delhi.
S EN, AMARTYA . 1999. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and
Deprivation . Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
S UBRAMANIAM, S. ( Ed.). 2001. India’s Development Experience: Selected
Writings of S. Guhan . Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
Articles
KUMAR , N AVEEN and S.C. A GGAR WAL . 2003. ‘Pattern of Consumption and
Poverty in Delhi Slums.’ Economic and Political Weekly, December
13, pp. 5294-5300.
MINHAS , B.S., L.R. J AIN and S.D. T ENDULKAR. 1991. ‘Declining Incidence of
Poverty in the 1980 s — Evidence versus Artefacts,’ Economic and
Political Weekly , July 6-13.
Government Reports
Report of the Expert Group of the Estimation of Proportion and Number of
Poor, Perspective Planning Division, Planning Commission Government
of India, New Delhi, 1993.
Economic Survey 2013-14. Ministry of Finance, Government of India.
Tenth Five Year Plan 2002 -2007, Vol. II: Sectoral Policies and Programmes,
Planning Commission, Government of India, New Delhi.
Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17), Vols. I, II and III. Sage Publications Pvt.
Ltd., New Delhi (for Planning Commission, Government of India).

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