Types of poverty in India: Relative Poverty: It is defined from the social perspective that is living standard compared to the economic standards of population living in surroundings.
Hence it is a measure of income inequality. For example, a family can be considered poor if it cannot afford vacations, or cannot buy presents for children at Christmas, or cannot send its young to the university.Usually, relative poverty is measured as the percentage of the population with income less than some fixed proportion of median income.It is a widely used measure to ascertain poverty rates in wealthy developed nations.In India: The standard of living in India varies from state to state.
With one of the fastest growing economies in the world, clocked at a growth rate of 7.6% in 2015, India is on its way to becoming a large and globally important consumer economy. According to Deutsche Bank Research, there are between 30 million and 300 million middle-class people in India.
If current trends continue, India’s share of world GDP will significantly increase from 7.3 in 2016 to 8.5 percent of the world share by 2020. In 2011, less than 22 percent of Indians lived under the global poverty line, nearly an 8 percent reduction from 29.
8 percent just two years prior in 2009.According to NCAER, India’s middle class population would be 267 million in 2016. Further ahead, by 2025-26 the number of middle class households in India is likely to more than double from the 2015-16 levels to 113.
8 million households or 547 million individuals. Another estimate put the Indian middle class as numbering 475 million people by 2030. It is estimated that average real wages will quadruple between 2013 and 2030.The standard of living in India shows large disparity. For example, there is widespread poverty in rural areas of India, where medical care tends to be very basic or unavailable, while cities boast of world class medical establishments. Similarly, the very latest machinery may be used in some construction projects, but many construction workers work without mechanization in most projects. However, a rural middle class is now emerging in India, with some rural areas seeing increasing prosperity.Generational Poverty: This is a more complicated type and we will see a detailed example here.
This is when poverty is handed over to individuals and families from generations before them. In this type, there is usually no escape from it, as people are trapped in its causes and have no access to tools that will help them get out of it.In India: Chronic poverty describes the situation of people or populations (individuals, households, social groups, regions or territories) who are poor for significant periods of their lives, who may pass their poverty on to their children, and for whom finding exit routes from poverty is difficult. It is estimated that there are from 78 to 130 million people in India living in such situations.
Who are the chronically poor in India ?Casual labor: a great many of the chronically poor are not excluded from the economy, but included on adverse terms. Insecure employment, low wages and poor working conditions trap people in poverty. Casual labor is on the increase in India: 41% of all households reported casual labor as their main income source in 1999-2000, and there are around 132 million rural casual laborers.
Casual labor is strongly associated with household poverty: many casual laborers never emerge sustainably from poverty. Persistently poor states: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar (and Jharkand), Madhya Pradesh (and Chattisgarh), Orissa, Rajasthan and Assam are states having persistent and severe poverty and the majority of India’s most deprived districts.Remote Rural Areas: Nevertheless, chronic poverty exists in every state in India, with “pockets” in even relatively wealthy or low-poverty-rate states such as Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh or Tamil Nadu. Rural areas poorly connected to urban centers are associated with particular problems.Household composition: Household size by itself does not appear to be statistically associated with greater likelihood of chronic poverty.
But chronically poor people do tend to live in households with a greater number of dependents (e.g. children), or lesser access to the labor market (e.g. with more women).
How do chronically poor people exit poverty?Just as there are many drivers of chronic poverty, so other processes can interrupt chronic poverty. People have found a variety of routes to avail themselves of economic opportunities and exit poverty. Analysis of panel data on rural households highlights a few key themes:Owning land: those poor households who have managed to retain some land are more likely to exit poverty.Greater village level infrastructure and district urbanization is associated with a higher rate of household exits from poverty, through greater connection to economic opportunity.
Rural Poverty: It occurs in rural areas with population below 50,000. It is the area where there are less job opportunities, less access to services, less support for disabilities and quality education opportunities. People are tending to live mostly on the farming and other menial work available to the surroundings.
The rural poverty rate is growing and has exceeded the urban rate every year since data collection began in the 1960s. The difference between the two poverty rates has averaged about 5 percent for the last 30 years, with urban rates near 10–15 percent and rural rates near 15–20 percent.In India: Rural areas are known as the ‘countryside’ or a ‘village’ in India. It has a very low population density. In rural areas, agriculture is the chief source of livelihood along with fishing, cottage industries, pottery.
Spatial inequality is one of the important features of poverty in India. Not only that there are significant inter-regional variations, but a large number of spatial poverty traps are either remote, low potential or marginal, less favored or weakly integrated. Poor natural resource endowments and poor access to natural resources is one of the most important drivers and maintainers of poverty and is linked to its long duration and its multi-dimensional characteristics. Despite marginal improvements, poor people in spatial poverty traps find it more difficult to exit poverty.Within rural areas, poverty is concentrated in 5 out of the 17 major (undivided) states (Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra). These five account for nearly two thirds of poor people in the country.The seven poorest regions (those with a very high proportion of very poor people) are found in the same five states. At a more disaggregated level, 51 out of the 52 most deprived districts (based on human development index) belong to four out the five states; the exception is Maharashtra, which is replaced by Rajasthan.
How NGOs Can Play a Role in Helping PoorAlong with civic bodies and different government agencies, independent, grass root-level Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can play (and are playing) a major role in curbing the extent of poverty in India. NGOs engage with the communities and work in the areas of sanitation, disease control, healthcare, education, emotional support, anchoring those in need etc. to help people move past the debilitating hurdles in life which keep them poor. NGOs like Save the Children are working amongst the most impoverished communities of India with an aim to empower them, especially children, to stand up on their feet. Education is a great enabler and empowers people to make it big in life and break free from the shackles of poverty. Save the Children has taken up the cause of educating the most disadvantaged children of India to give them opportunities to learn and make it big in life. Support an NGO today and help fight the menace of poverty.
Urban Poverty: It occurs in the metropolitan areas with population over 50,000. These are some major challenges faced by the Urban Poor:• Limited access to health and education.• Inadequate housing and services.• Violent and unhealthy environment because of overcrowding.
• Little or no social protection mechanism.In India: Living conditions and access to servicesIn urban centers, people are dependent on the provision of public and private services to mitigate the environmental effects of the overcrowded conditions in which they live – accumulations of solid waste, human excrement, stagnant water in polluted open drains. They cannot dispose of their rubbish on open wastelands, or relieve themselves in forests, and they cannot rely on common property resources as alternative sources of income, water and fuel.Unfortunately, many poor people do not have access to those services – water, drain clearance, solid waste disposal systems – which could improve the environmental conditions within which they live.This means that urban poverty is invariably associated with poor quality housing, often in overcrowded unsanitary slum settlements, and with ill health which is related to the spread of infectious diseases like tuberculosis and the constant threat of exposure to environmental hazards such as mosquito infested drains, and fires and floods, which could destroy their homes altogether. As per the latest national sample survey organization (NSSO) survey reports there are over 80 million poor people living in the cities and towns of India.
The Slum population is also increasing and as per town and country planning organization (TCPO) estimates 2001; over 61.80 million people were living in slums.• The bulk of the urban poor are living in extremely deprived conditions with insufficient physical amenities like : ? Low-cost water supply ? Improper sanitation? Bad Sewerage and drainage system? Very less social services relating to health care, nutrition, pre-school and non-formal education.
