Introduction:

Rural Poverty in India

The number of poor people in India, according to the countrys Eleventh National Development Plan, amounts to more than 300 million. The country has been successful in reducing the proportion of poor people from about 55 per cent in 1973 to about 27 per cent in 2004. But almost one third of the countrys population of more than 1.1 billion continues to live below the poverty line, and a large proportion of poor people live in rural areas. Poverty remains a chronic condition for almost 30 per cent of Indias rural population. The incidence of rural poverty has declined somewhat over the past three decades as a result of rural to urban migration. Poverty is deepest among members of scheduled castes and tribes in the country's rural areas. In 2005 these groups accounted for 80 per cent of poor rural people, although their share in the total rural population is much smaller. On the map of poverty in India, the poorest areas are in parts of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal. Large numbers of India's poorest people live in the country's semi-arid tropical region. In this area shortages of water and recurrent droughts impede the transformation of agriculture that the Green Revolution has achieved elsewhere. There is also a high incidence of poverty in flood-prone areas such as those extending from eastern Uttar Pradesh to the Assam plains, and especially in northern Bihar. Poverty affects tribal people in forest areas, where loss of entitlement to resources has made them even poorer. In coastal fishing communities people's living conditions are deteriorating because of environmental degradation, stock depletion and vulnerability to natural disasters. A major cause of poverty among Indias rural people, both individuals and communities, is lack of access to productive assets and financial resources. High levels of illiteracy, inadequate health care and extremely limited access to social services are common among poor rural people. Microenterprise development, which could generate income and enable poor people to improve their living conditions, has only recently become a focus of the government. Women in general are the most disadvantaged people in Indian society, though their status varies significantly according to their social and ethnic backgrounds. Women are particularly vulnerable to the spread of HIV/AIDS from urban to rural areas. In 2005 an estimated 5.7 million men, women and children in India were living with HIV/AIDS. Most of them are in the 15-49 age group and almost 40 per cent of them, or 2.4 million in 2008, are women (National AIDS Control Organisation).

Urban Poverty in India India is stepping forward for becoming a country with more urbanized. The recentexperiences tell that the urban areas are facing the same problem of poverty as of therural areas. The reasons behind urban poverty are as follows:1) Improper Training2) Growing population3) Slower job Growth4) Failure of PDS SystemEstimates of incidence of Poverty in India Urban poverty and problems Urban poverty was easily discernible through lack of security of land tenure, access toaffordable shelter and basic amenities, particularly, health, education and socialsecurity.Urban poverty was linked to the aspects of social inclusion, city-wide infrastructure and basic service delivery systems, opportunities for skill development and employment, responsiveness of local governance structures and policies and programmes impacting on urban environment, development and management. The

bulk of the urban poor are living in extremely deprived conditions with insufficient physical amenities like low-cost water supply, sanitation, sewerage, drainage, communitycentres and social services relating to health care, nutrition, pre-school and non-formaleducationWorkers engaged in the urban informal sector form the bulk of the urban poor. Workersin this sector get low wages or if they are self-employed, their income is meagre. Thisimplies that their living conditions are low and, if employed, their wages are less than thestipulated minimum wages. There are hardly any regulations on their working conditionsand social security is virtually non-existent. A large section of this population consists of low-skilled rural migrants or migrants from smaller towns. Hence, for these people, rightfrom the time of their entry to the city they become a part of the informal sector as theyhave neither the skills nor the opportunities to enter better-paid and more secure formalsector jobs. They thus move from one level of poverty, at their place of origin, to anotherlevel of poverty, at their destination. At the same time there is a growing section of workers in the formal sector who have lost their jobs and are compelled to work in theinformal sector. For these people and their families this change means a reduction in theirstandard of living and insecure, unregulated employment.People in urban areas are homeless and slum householdsare deprived of good housing,they do not have access to cleanwater, they do not have access to hygienic systems of wastedisposal (including the sanitary disposal of faeces) and, in general,they live inpolluted and degraded environments not suitedto human habitation

Scope
Poverty in India is still rampant despite an impressive economic growth. An estimated250 million people are below the poverty line and approximately 75 per cent of them arein the rural areas. 197374, the urban population was 60 million. It increased to 64.6million in 1977-78, 70.9m in 1983-84, 75.2m in 1987-88, 76.3m in 1993-94, and in 1999-2000 it had risen to 77.2m. The growth rate of urban population is due to the large-scaleshifting of rural population to urban areas. This steep rate of growth of urban populationalong with the urban bias in developing countries has brought in its wake problems likepopulation explosion in cities, slum formation and urban poverty.Urban poverty, whichhas a serious impact on economic growth in India.Tamilnadu is fourth most populated state in India. Tamil Nadu has performed well inhuman development. With an index of 0.531, it ranked third in India, though considered low as against western standards. This includes population, sex ratio, and density of population, per capita income, Below Poverty Line, Infant Mortality Rate, Literacy Rate, and Women's Empowerment. The life expectancy at birth for males is 65.2 years and for females it is 67.6 years. However, it has a number of challenges; significantly, the poverty is high, especially in the rural areas. As of 2004-2005, the poverty line was set arts. 351.86 / month for rural areas and Rs. 547.42 / month for urban areas. Poverty in thestate had dropped from 51.7% in 1983 to 21.1% in 2001. For the period 2004-2005, the Trend in Incidence of Poverty in the state was 22.5% as against the national figure of 27.5%.Over one-half of these people live in slums or are homeless; they live in tenements and huts, on pavements, along railway tracks, under bridges and in other spaces available to them. The conditions of life under which the homeless and slum dwellers of Chennai live are conditions of terrible poverty, squalor and deprivation. Poverty is symptomatic of inadequate economic development. Poverty in India is still rampant despite an impressive economic growth. An estimated250 million people are below the poverty line and approximately 75 per cent of them are in the rural areas the estimation of poverty in India is based on two critical components. First, information on the consumption expenditures and its distribution across households is provided by thins consumption expenditure surveys. Second, these expenditures by households are evaluated with reference to a given poverty line. Households with consumption expenditures below the poverty line are deemed poor. Poverty in India can be defined as a situation only when a section of peoples are unable to satisfy the basic needs of life. The definition and methods of measuring poverty differs from country to country. The Planning Commission estimates the proportion and number of poor separately for rural and urban India at the national and State levels based on the recommendations of the Task Force on Projections of Minimum Needs and Effective Consumption Demands (1979). The Task

Force had defined the poverty line (BPL) as the cost of an all India average consumption basket at which calorie norms were met. The norms were 2400 calories per capita per day for rural areas and 2100 calories for urban Areas. These calorie norms have been expressed in monetary terms as Rs. 49.09 and Rs.56.64 per capita per month for rural and urban areas respectively at 1973-74 prices. If the person is unable to get that minimum level of calories is considered as being below poverty line. The

Causes
One cause is a high population growth rate, although demographers generally agree that this is a symptom rather than cause of poverty. While services and industry have grown at double-digit figures, agriculture growth rate has dropped from 4.8% to 2%. About 60% of the population depends on [40] agriculture whereas the contribution of agriculture to the GDP is about 18%. The surplus of labour in agriculture has caused many people to not have jobs. Farmers are a large vote bank and use their votes to resist reallocation of land for higher-income industrial project.

Caste system According to S. M. Michael, Dalits constitute the bulk of poor and unemployed.According to William A. Haviland, casteism is widespread in rural areas and continues to segregate Dalits.Others, however, have noted the steady rise and empowerment of the Dalits through social reforms and the implementation of reservations in employment and benefits India's economic policies In 1947, the average annual income in India was US$619, compared with US$439 for China, US$770 for South Korea, and US$936 for Taiwan. By 1999, the numbers were US$1,818 India;US$3,259 China; US$13,317 South Korea ; and US$15,720 Taiwan, respectively.[45] (Numbers are in 1990 international Maddison dollars.) In other words, the average income in India was not much different from South Korea in 1947, but South Korea became a developed country by the 2000s. At the same time, India was left as one of the world's poorer countries. India had to somehow manage and facilitate its resources and planning in such a way that the poverty ratio could be reduced. License Raj refers to the elaborate licenses, regulations and the accompanying red tape that were required to set up and run a business in India between 1947 and 1990.[46] The License Raj was a result of India's decision to have a planned economy, where all aspects of the economy are controlled by the state and licenses were given to a select few. Corruption flourished under this system.[47] The labyrinthine bureaucracy often led to absurd restrictions up to 80 agencies had to be satisfied before a firm could be granted a licence to produce and the state would decide what was produced, how much, at what price and what sources of capital were used.