Poverty test - 6

The basic needs approach is one of the major approaches to the measurement of absolute poverty in developing countries. It attempts to define the absolute minimum resources necessary for long-term physical well being, usually in terms of consumption goods. The poverty line is then defined as the amount of income required to satisfy those needs. A traditional list of immediate "basic needs" is food, shelter and clothing. Many modern lists emphasize the minimum level of consumption of 'basic needs' of not just food, water, clothing and shelter, but also sanitation, education, and healthcare.

The basic needs approach is one of the major approaches to the measurement of absolute poverty in developing countries. Many modern lists emphasize the minimum level of consumption of 'basic needs' of not just food, water, clothing and shelter, but also sanitation, education, and healthcare.

A person below the poverty line is poor. In India a person who earns less than Rs 32 in rural areas and Rs 47 in urban areas is poor.

Economic measures of poverty include access to material needs, typically necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, and safe drinking water, measures of income, or measure of wealth.

The social groups most vulnerable to poverty have been identified to be the scheduled caste households and the scheduled tribe households with both thesegroups having above average levels of poverty indicators in the rural and the urban population.

Rural people engage themselves in more physical work than urban people. So they need high calorie food

In the past two decades, research in development and poverty has firmly established that poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon that can’t be adequately described or measured in monetary terms. So the boundary is widening from the economic perspective alone to include social, political and cultural dimensions also.

High population growth rate is one of major reasons of poverty in India. This further leads to high level of illiteracy, poor health care facilities and lack of access to financial resources. Caste system and unequal distribution of income and resources is another reason of poverty in India.

The major reasons for these programmes being less effective are as follows:

1. Lack of proper implimentation and right targeting

2. Overlapping of schemes

3. Benefits not fully reaching to the deserving poor.

The women, old or aged people and the female infants are the poorest of the poor because they are denied equal access to resources available to the family.