NAVODAYA VIDYALAYA SAMITI

E-CONTENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

FOR CLASS-IX
CHAPTER-3
POVERTY AS A
CHALLENGE

Prepared by :Momin Hazarika

PGT (Economics)
JNV, Sonitpur (Assam)
Introduction
⚫ In our daily life, we come
across many people who
we think are poor.
⚫ They could be landless
labourers in villages or
people living in over
crowded Jhuggis in
cities.
⚫ They could also be beggars
with children in tatters.
⚫ We see poverty all around
us.
⚫ In fact, every fourth person
in India is poor.
⚫ This means, roughly 260
million (or26 crore) people
in India live in poverty.
⚫ This also means that India
has the largest single
concentration of the poor
in the world.
⚫ This illustrates the
seriousness of the
challenge.
Two Typical Cases of poverty: Urban Case
 Story of Ram Saran
⚫ Thirty-three year old Ram Saran works as a daily-wager in a wheat
flour mill near Ranchi in Jharkhand.
⚫ He earns around Rs 1,500 a month when he finds employment
which is not often.
⚫ The money is not enough to sustain his family of six— that includes
his wife and four children aged between 12 years to six months.
⚫ He has to send money to his old parents who live in a village near
Ramgarh. His father a landless labourer, depends on Ram Saran .
⚫ Ram Saran lives in a one-room rented house which is built of brick
and clay tiles in a crowded basti in the outskirts of the city.
• His wife Santa Devi, works as a part time maid in a few houses
and earn another Rs 800.
• They manage a meagre meal of dal and rice twice a day, but
never enough for all of them.
• His elder son works as a helper in a tea shop to supplement the
family income and earns another Rs 300.
• His 10- year-old daughter takes care of the younger siblings.
• None of the children go to school. They have only two pairs of
hand-me-down clothes. Shoes are a luxury.
• The children have no health care when they fall ill.
Rural Case
Story of Lakha Singh
⚫ Lakha Singh belongs to a small village near Meerut in Uttar
Pradesh.
⚫ His family doesn’t own any land, so they do odd jobs for the
big farmers. Work is erratic(irregular) and so is income.
⚫ At times they get paid Rs 50 for a hard day’s work. But often
it’s in kind like a few kilograms of wheat or dal or even
vegetables for toiling in the farm through the day.
⚫ The family of eight cannot always manage two square meals
a day.
⚫ Lakha lives in a kuchha hut on the outskirts of the village.
•The women of the family spend the day chopping fodder and
collecting firewood in the fields.
•His father a TB patient, passed away two years ago due to lack of
medication.
•His mother now suffers from the same disease .
•Although, the village has a primary school, Lakha never went
there.
•He had to start earning when he was 10 years old.
•New clothes happen once in a few years. Even soap and oil are a
luxury for the family.
 What do they show?
⚫ These two typical cases show that
poverty means landlessness, child
labour, hunger, unemployment,
poor health and lack of shelter.
⚫ Poverty also means Illiteracy, lack
of clean water and sanitation
facilities.
 Poverty as seen by social scientists
⚫ Along with income and consumption
they use some other indicator like
illiteracy level, malnutrition.
⚫ They show that poverty means hunger
and lack of shelter.
⚫ Poverty also means lack of clean water
and sanitation facilities.
 Social exclusion
• According to this concept,
poverty must be seen in
terms of the poor having to
live only in a poor
surrounding with other
poor people, excluded
from enjoying social
equality of better -off
people in better
surroundings.
 Vulnerability
⚫ Vulnerability describes the
greater probability of certain
communities or individuals
of becoming, or remaining,
poor in the coming years.
⚫ The people from backward
cast, individuals like widows,
physically handicapped
are more vulnerable.
⚫ They possess greater risks at
the time of natural disasters.
 Poverty in India 2000:
Most vulnerable Groups
 Poverty line
⚫ A common method used to
measure poverty is based on the
income or consumption levels.
⚫ A person is considered poor if
his or her income or
consumption level falls below a
given “minimum level”
necessary to fulfill basic needs.
 Poverty line
⚫ The present formula
for food requirement
while estimating the
poverty line is based
on the desired calorie
requirement.
 Poverty line
⚫ The accepted average
calorie requirement in
India is 2400 calories per
person per day in rural
areas and 2100 calories per
person per day in urban
areas.
Poverty line
⚫ Since people living in
rural areas engage
themselves in more
physical work, calorie
requirements in rural
areas are considered to
be higher than urban
areas.
Poverty line in terms of Income
⚫ Poverty line varies with time place.
⚫ For the year 2009-10, the poverty line for a person
was fixed at Rs.673 per month for rural area and
Rs. 860 for the urban areas.
⚫ The poverty line is estimated periodically by
conducting sample surveys by National Sample
Survey Organisation. ( NSSO)
 Global Poverty Scenario:
⚫ There has been significant decline in global poverty.
However, it is marked with great regional differences.
Poverty has declined more in China and South-East
Asian countries.
⚫ World bank has defined poverty as the people earning
less than 1.25 $ per day.
⚫ The Millennium Development Goals of the United
Nations call for reducing the proportion of people
below poverty line to half the 1990 level by 2015.
Poverty: Comparison among Some Selected Countries
COUNTRY % OF POPULATION BELOW $1.90 PER
DAY(2011PPP)
Nigeria 53.5(2009)
Bangladesh 14.4(2016)
India 21.2(2011
Pakistan 4.0(2015)
China 0.7(2015)
Brazil 3.4(2015)
Indunesia 5.7(2017
Sri lanka 0.7(2016)

Source:Poverty and equity Database.World bank data;(databank.worldbank.org)

 Causes of Poverty
⚫ There are a number of causes
for the widespread poverty in
India.
⚫ One historical reason is the low
level of economic development
under the British colonial
administration.
⚫ The failure at both the fronts:
promotion of economic growth
and population control
continued the cycle of poverty.
Causes of Poverty
⚫ There are some other reasons.
⚫ These are :
1. Rapid growth of population, particularly among the poor is considered a major cause of
Indian poverty.
⚫ 2. Our agricultural sector has failed to generate much employment opportunities for the
farm labourers. Similarly, our industries could not provide much job for the job seekers.
⚫ 3. One of the major causes of poverty is the unequal distribution of land and other
resources. Various land reform measures introduced after Independence could not
improve the life of millions of rural poor because of their poor implementation.
⚫ 4. Social factors :
⚫ People in India, including the very poor, spend a lot of money on social occasions like
marriages, festivals, etc. Poor people hardly have any savings; they are, thus forced to
borrow. Unable to pay because of poverty, they became victims of indebtedness.
⚫ Joint family system has prevented people from doing hard work.
 Causes of Poverty
⚫ Illiteracy
⚫ Unemployment
⚫ Poor health
⚫ Child labour
⚫ Poor sanitation facilities
⚫ Helplessness
⚫ Landlessness
⚫ Huge income inequalities.
⚫ Socio-cultural factors.
⚫ Economic factors.
 Anti-Poverty Measures By the Indian Government

⚫ The current anti-poverty

strategy of the
government is based
broadly on two planks
⚫ (1) Promotion of
economic growth.
⚫ (2) Targeted anti-poverty
programmes.
II. National Food for Work Programme (NFWP),
which was launched in 2004
The National Food for Work
Programme was launched by
minister of rural development,
Central Government on 14th
November 2004 in 150 of the
most backward districts of
India with the objective of
generating supplementary wage
employment. The programme is
open to all rural poor who are
prepared to do manual,
unskilled labours.
III.Prime Minister Rozgar Yojana (PMRY) is another scheme which was
started in 1993

The aim of PMRY is to create

self-employment
opportunities for educated
unemployed youth in rural
areas and small towns .(By
starting a target to establish
seven lakh micro ventures by
the jobless educated youth.)
IV. Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP) .

▪ It was launched in 1995 .

The aim of the programme
is to create self
employment opportunities
in rural areas and small
towns.
▪ A target for creating 25 lakh
new jobs has been set for
the programme under the
Tenth Five Year Plan.
 The Challenges Ahead
⚫ Challenges that still remain: providing health
care, education and job security for all, and
achieving gender equality and dignity for the
poor.
⚫ These will be even bigger tasks.
 The Challenges Ahead
⚫ But despite the progress, poverty reduction remains
India’s most compelling challenge.
⚫ Wide disparities in poverty are visible between rural
and urban areas and among different states.
⚫ Certain social and economic groups are more
vulnerable to poverty.
 The Challenges Ahead
⚫ Poverty reduction is expected to make better
progress in the next ten to fifteen year.
⚫ This would be possible mainly due to higher
economic growth, increasing stress on universal
free elementary education, declining population
growth, increasing empowerment of the women
and the economically weaker sections of society.
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