Poverty As A Challenge Test - 3

The 'poorest of the poor' are those who are systematically denied equal access to their family resources in rural areas. They include women, girl children and elderly people.

• Income differences has been found to be very high which creates poverty.
• Unequal distribution of land among people also increases poverty.
• Poverty also increased as effective land reform implementation have not taken place.

Women, old people and children are the poorest of the poor in the society.    

The estimated population of India is 300 million people. More than 70 percent of the population lives in the rural areas where access to resources and quality education is hard. Therefore, the majority of the population fail to acquire the necessary skills for development. Overpopulation in India has led to high unemployment rates and has inhibited the provision of quality public services. The caste system in India has also contributed to the increase in poverty due to separation of people into thousands of groups.

As per the Census report, the percentage of population living Below Poverty Line is 27.5%.

A cultivator with a land holding of 1 hectare or less than 2.5 acres is known as medium farmer. According to the government law, these farmers are not poor.

Lack of positive political inclination is not a cause of poverty. The government has been running targeted anti-poverty campaigns and has taken measures to uplift economic growth. Others are causes such as economic development suffered during the British administration. They discouraged traditional industries, handicrafts and promoted their products in the market.  Further, when people migrated from rural to cities, they were unable to find jobs and started working at small irregular incomes as vendors, rickshaw pullers. This created urban poverty. Also uneven distribution of land and resources has resulted in poverty.

The causes of poverty are-