How to Break India’s Poverty Cycle
Observed on every Oct. 17 since 1987, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty has been marked over these years by the United Nations to acknowledge the effort and struggle of those living in poverty and telling them that their voices are being heard.
The commemoration of this year’s event is based on the theme ‘Coming together with those furthest behind to build an inclusive world of universal respect for human rights and dignity.’ Call to Action to fight to end poverty everywhere in all forms is in the United Nations’ agenda 2030 for sustainable development.
Broadly classified, the causes of poverty mainly include massive population growth leading to imbalance between demand and supply of essential goods. The demand for basic necessities such as housing, food and shelter is at its peak, but the resources are limited.
Despite being one of the fastest growing economies in the world, poverty in India means deprivation of basic necessities such as food, house, clean drinking water, shelter and toilets.
Poverty has many faces and it is a social struggle which affects communities far and wide across the nations. Observers say that situation is not as grim as the statistics show and if the current trends continue, India’s share of world GDP will significantly increase from 7.3% in 2016 to 8.5% by 2020.
However, they add that it has been estimated that around 21 percent of the total population of India live below the poverty line, defined in terms of a nutritionally adequate diet or a minimum desirable level of income.
Progress
Over 270 million people in India moved out of poverty in the decade since 2005–06 and the poverty rate in the country nearly halved over the 10-year period, a promising sign that poverty is being tackled globally, according to latest estimates released last September.
The 2018 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) said that about 1.3 billion people live in what is known as multidimensional poverty globally.
This is almost a quarter of the population of the 104 countries for which the 2018 MPI is calculated. Of these 1.3 billion, almost half — 46 per cent — are thought to be living in severe poverty and are deprived in at least half of the dimensions covered in the MPI, it said.
While there is much that needs to be done to tackle poverty globally, there are “promising signs that such poverty can be — and is being — tackled.”
India is the first country for which progress over time has been estimated.
The Steps Ahead
The following five important measures which should be taken to reduce poverty in India are as follows:
1.Accelerating Economic Growth: A study made by Montek Ahuluwalia, former member of Planning Commission, clearly showed that agricultural growth and poverty are inversely related; the higher agricultural growth leads to lower poverty ratio. The experience of Punjab and Haryana in the late sixties and in the seventies confirmed this inverse relation between agriculture growth and poverty.
2. Infrastructure of development: An important measure to generate employment opportunities for the poor and to raise their productivity is the speedy development of infrastructure. Since the private sector is not attracted to make adequate investment in infrastructure, public investment needs to be stepped up for its development. Infrastructure development consists of building of roads, highways, ports, telecommunication, power and irrigation. They involve mainly construction work, which is highly labour intensive.
3. Human Resource Development: This kind of investment in human capital not only generates a good deal of employment opportunities but also raises productivity and income of the poor. Further, people equipped with skills, education and good health can easily get wage employment or self-employment with higher productivity.
4. Access to credit: Availability of credit to the poor on easy terms can create the conditions for small farmers gaining access to productive resources such as HYV seeds fertilizers, construction of minor irrigation such as wells and tubewells. This will enable the small farmers to adopt high- yielding technology to raise their productivity.
5. Public Distribution System: Poor households spend nearly 80 per cent of their income on food. Therefore, an effective way of raising rural incomes and ensuring food security to the poor households is an assured supply of adequate quantity of food-grains and other essential commodities at subsidised prices, that is, at prices which are lower than the market prices.
The political class must prioritise these reforms and take concrete steps to combat poverty over engaging in cynical politics.
Watch this documentary short made by Kush Dudeja on poverty in India.
Ketto & Community Upliftment
Since its inception, Ketto has been a champion of the oppressed and needy in this country. Click on the links below to view crowdfunding projects it has been involved with for poverty alleviation efforts. If you feel inspired, you can start your own project with Ketto as well.
Ketto Blog remains committed to inspiring and compelling social change to India’s most pressing problems through the power of great stories and engaging our audiences to take meaningful action.
