New Delhi,Sept,30: Despite the declines in poverty level with the robust economic expansion, India maintains higher poverty rates than its arch rival Pakistan.
As per 2011 World Bank report titled "Perspectives on poverty in India : stylized facts from survey data" released in 2011.
The World Bank data of current year shows that India's poverty rate of 27.5 percent, based upon countries’ current poverty line of $1.03 each person every day, is more than 10 percentage points higher than Pakistan's 17.2percent.
North eastern state Assam, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh are the only three Indian states in the country with having poverty rates than Pakistan.
The data says that the consumption poverty has s reduced in India; the number of people who consume calories above the minimum level associated with the poverty line is 2,400 in rural area and 2,100 kilocalories per day in urban areas, respectively—has not gone up. As of 2004–05, as many as 80 percent of rural households were estimated to be “calorie poor.”
The middle-class of India lives barely or not far above poverty line of $1.02 a day, and significantly below international poverty lines, especially in rural part which is the dominant in the country.
Significant differences in poverty levels exist across the country and indeed are growing more in urban parts.
The rural areas of poorest states like Orissa, Bihar West Bengal have high poverty rates which are the highest in the developing world.
In contrast, urban areas of India’s richest state Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have poverty rates that are similar as Turkey or the richer Latin American Nations.
The main causes of poverty in India are its high population growth rate, highly dependent on agriculture, rudimentary agricultural practices, mass illiteracy, high level of ignorance, unemployment, underemployment, and caste based politics, urban rural divide, iniquity and discrimination. About 27.5 percent of the population of the country has emerged from the squalor of poverty in last decade in spite of the above factors.
The situation of urban poverty in country can be expressed with the term pseudo urbanization in India. Pseudo urbanization is a state when the urban area is unable support the population in terms of providing basic necessarily including livelihood, housing and infrastructure.
This is mainly because of the mass level continuous immigration of the rural poor into urban areas for the better life. Immigration creates the pressure over the resources in the cities. Urban poverty in India and other third world countries has resulted in the formation of large slums,gheto,chawls,jhuggi and shanty towns in the big city of India.
The government in the country has launched multiple plans to eradicate poverty from India since 1950.Programmes like ‘national employment program’ and ‘food for work’ initiatives have done much to harness the unemployed as productive beings. Another anti poverty program in recent times, which has won much acclaim, is the MNREGA’.
The target of eradication of poverty in India has still miles away. Poverty solutions in country are expected to make better progress with combination programs set up for their upliftment of poor.
Globalization and privatization have also increased the inequality in the country as the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer the capital is segregating in few people pocket.
The spike in inflation has made life unaffordable for the economically weaker people and forces them into child labor.
Although the poverty reduction programs have shown some positive impact but, it still requires a concentrated effort on the part of the government to make the poor people self sufficient.
It is not just important to support the poor people on occasional basis but it requires the needs to provide them regular work so that they can have a steady income.
The number for poverty reflects the economic prosperity has indeed been in India, but the distribution of wealth is not at all equal.
Source:
http://goindocal.com/opinion-%BB-issues--poverty-is-still-a-big-issue-for-igo-2744.
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