India- Poverty is increasing at alarming pace
Indian population living on two dollar per day or less doubled in one year
The poverty
in India is increasing at fast pace. Not only the relative poverty is on rise
but extreme poverty has increased even more sharply in the last one year. The impacts
of COVID-19 pandemic have felt much more deeply because Indian economy was slowed
down before the coronavirus spread in India.
The
unemployment and poverty were rising before the COVID-19 pandemic. The rural
economy was in crisis. The rural India felt the negative impacts of lockdown
and mass migration back to rural areas from urban centres as the result of the lockdown.
The COVID-19 pandemic struck India when it
recorded its lowest economic growth in over a decade. The slowing economy was
hit hard by lockdown imposed to slow down the spread of coronavirus. The
economic crisis had disproportionately impacted the rural areas, where majority
of Indians still live.
Even in
absence of any official data, one could perceive a rise in rural poverty.
Unemployment was high; consumption expenditure was constantly coming down; and
public spending on development was stagnant.
Mostly an
informal workforce and poor by any accepted definition — have lived with
irregular jobs for over a year. Anecdotal stories of precarious survival are
pouring out. People are cutting back on food items; many have stopped having
the basics like lentil as food inflation has spiked.
According to Pew Research
Center research on poverty in india has estimated that the number of poor in India
(with income of $2 per day or less in purchasing power parity) has more than
doubled in just a year due to the
pandemic-induced recession. This means, India is back in a situation to be
called a “country of mass poverty.”
There are
many ways of defining and estimating poverty in a country, such as India. For
example, the Tendulkar Committee in India based its calculations of subsistence
level on the requirement of cereal, pulses, milk, edible oil, non-vegetarian
items, vegetables, fresh fruits, dry fruits, sugar, salt & spices, other
food, fuel, clothing, footwear, education, medical (non-institutional and
institutional), entertainment, personal & toilet goods, other goods, other
services and durables.
Hence, as per Tendulkar Committee methodology, the national poverty line (in Rs per capita per month) for the year 2011-12 was calculated at Rs 816 for rural areas and Rs 1000 for urban areas. Using this methodology, the National Sample Survey Organisation estimated poverty at 21.9% of the population (269 million) in 2011-12.
In contrast,
the international poverty line as updated in October 2015 by the World Bank
stands at US$1.90 per day (2011 PPP). In 2011, 21.2% of the total population in
India was estimated to be living below this poverty line, as per the World Bank
data.
Household
expenditure is considered for calculating the poverty count in India. In this
method, the purchasing power of people for buying food and some essential
non-food items is taken into account.
With this,
India’s uninterrupted progress in poverty reduction since the 1970s has
stalled. Last time India reported an increase in poverty was in the first
quarter-century after Independence. From 1951 to 1974, the population of the
poor increased from 47 to 56 per cent of the total population.
In the
recent years, India emerged as the country with the highest rate of poverty
reduction. In 2019, the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index reported that
India lifted 271 million citizens out of poverty between 2006 and 2016.
Contrast this with the situation in 2020: the highest global poverty increase
happened in India.
India has
not counted its poor since 2011. But the United Nations estimated the number of
poor in the country to be 364 million in 2019, or 28 % of the
population. This figure has climbed to more than 500 million in 2020.
60% of the
poor still lives in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,
Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The reason for these states to be in the
category of the poorest state is because 85% of tribal people live there. Also,
most of these regions are either flood-prone or suffer from calamities.
These
conditions hamper agriculture to a great extent, on which the household income
of these groups depends. Tribal people, Dalits and labour class including farm
workers in villages and casual workers in cities are still very poor and make
the poorest class in India.
People
have reduced spending or are not able to spend. They have already exhausted
their savings, reducing their capacity to spend in future. Government spending
is also proportionate to the crisis. This means a perpetuation of the current
economic situation. And a way out of it is not certain, like the pathway of the pandemic.
But in spite of all the attempts, the overall number of poor in India is still increasing and becoming a hurdle. Poverty is just like a disease to which many other problems such as crime, low-paced development, etc are associated. There are number of people in India who still live on the streets and beg for the whole day to eat a meal.
Underprivileged children are unable to attend school and,
and those have the opportunity drop out after a year or so. People below
poverty line live in unhygienic conditions and are so prone to many health
problems. With this, the vicious cycle of poor health, lack of education and
more poverty keeps on increasing.
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