According to India’s Eleventh National Development Plan, more than 300 million people live in poverty. India has successfully reduced the number of impoverished people from 55 percent in 1973 to around 27 percent (326 million) in 2004. According to latest estimates (2011-12), there are 216.5 million impoverished individuals in rural regions. Even yet, about a third of India’s population lives in poverty, with the bulk of the destitute residing in villages and rural areas.

Causes

• Agriculture is extremely important in India’s rural economy. The majority of people in rural regions work in agriculture, which is subject to the whims of nature. Agriculture in India is heavily dependant on the monsoon, which is variable and inconsistent. This frequently results in a crop yield that is small or excessive (which cannot be properly consumed).
• Farmers’ troubles are exacerbated by a lack of irrigation infrastructure and frequent droughts, and they are cash-strapped throughout the year. Many people take out loans that they can’t pay back. Occasionally, the situation becomes so dire that many farmers commit suicide.
• Because of the impacts of extreme rural poverty, many rural regions lack even basic services like as sanitation, infrastructure, communication, and education.
• People’s personal characteristics can contribute to the spread of poverty. Many individuals in rural regions, for example, do not practise appropriate hygiene. This causes ailments, and in order to treat them, individuals must spend large quantities of money, trapping them in a vicious circle of poverty.
• Work refusal, lack of education, alcohol and substance misuse, and involvement in anti-social activities are all factors that contribute to poverty in different ways. Extreme population increase in rural regions and among impoverished families is another major cause of widespread poverty.

Recent measures

• The identification of deprived households on the basis of the Socioeconomic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 across welfare programmes helped in creating a constituency for the well-being of the poor, irrespective of caste, creed or religion.
• Coverage of women under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana and Self Help Groups (SHG) increased from 2.5 crore in 2014 to over 8 crore in 2018 as a result of more than 75 lakh SHGs working closely with over 31 lakh elected panchayati raj representatives, 40 per cent of whom are women. This provided a robust framework to connect with communities and created a social capital that helped every programme.
• Finance Commission transfers were made directly to gram panchayats leading to the creation of basic infrastructure like pucca village roads and drains at a much faster pace in rural areas. The high speed of road construction under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadhak Yojana created greater opportunities for employment in nearby larger villages/census towns/kasbas by improving connectivity and enhancing mobility.
• Social capital of SHGs ensured the availability of credit through banks, micro-finance institutions and MUDRA loans. The NRLM prioritised livelihood diversification and implemented detailed plans for credit disbursement. New businesses, both farm and non-farm livelihoods, were taken up by women’s collectives on a large scale with community resource persons playing crucial handholding roles, especially with respect to skill development.
• In the two phases of the Gram Swaraj Abhiyan in 2018, benefits such as gas and electricity connections, LED bulbs, accident insurance, life insurance, bank accounts and immunisation were provided to 6,3974 villages that were selected because of their high SC and ST populations.
• The thrust on universal coverage for individual household latrines, LPG connections and pucca houses for those who lived in kuccha houses ensured that no one was left behind
• The thrust on a people’s plan campaign, “Sabki Yojana Sabka Vikas” for preparing the Gram Panchayat Development Plans and for ranking villages and panchayats on human development, economic activity and infrastructure, from 2017-18 onwards, laid the foundation for robust community participation involving panchayats and SHGs, especially in ensuring accountability.
• Through processes like social and concurrent audits, efforts were made to ensure that resources were fully utilised. Several changes were brought about in programmes like the MGNREGS to create durable and productive assets. This helped marginal and small farmers in improving their homesteads, and diversifying livelihoods.
• The competition among states to improve performance on rural development helped. Irrespective of the party in power, nearly all states and UTs focussed on improving livelihood diversification in rural areas and on improving infrastructure significantly.

Rural poverty must be eradicated not just as a moral obligation or to protect rural people’s citizenship and rights, but also because it is at the heart of multiple interconnected processes that impact development and peace in rural and metropolitan regions. The World Bank has issued a request to investigate alternative methods of measuring poverty in order to better understand it and solve the challenge of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 while guaranteeing long-term improvements in the well-being of poor people. It also advocated for greater immediate action, because this objective is unlikely to be met at the current rate. To jump-start the rural economy, we need policies that focus on providing incentives rather than handouts to individuals who are stuck in a cycle of poverty. The need to bridge the urban-rural gap is critical for the economy’s long-term viability. To achieve equitable economic growth, the government must focus quickly on changing the agrarian sector in order to lift as many people as possible out of subsistence farming and provide them with a far more lucrative position.

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/this-is-how-poverty-in-rural-india-came-down-7907047/

How to structure

1. Give a brief intro about India’s poverty data in rural areas
2. Briefly explain the reasons
3. Discuss the recent measures taken
4. Suggest further measures
5. Conclude