Poverty remains a significant problem in India, though it has decreased in recent decades. According to the document, around 42% of Indians lived below the international poverty line of $1.25 per day in 2005, reduced from 60% in 1981. However, poverty estimates vary and are debated. While absolute poverty may have decreased, many Indians still face issues of malnutrition, low human development, and lack of access to necessities. Alleviating poverty in India is an ongoing challenge but economic growth and government programs have helped reduce poverty levels.

1. SOCIAL STUDIES PROJECT TOPIC POVERTY IN RURAL AREAS M.RAMKI ‘IX’

2. POVERTY PROVERBS Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how expensive it is to be poor. The poor are Europe’s black. Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the laws. The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty. Come away poverty’s catching.

3. POVERTY Poverty is widespread in India, with the nation estimated to have a third of the world's poor. According to a 2005 World Bank estimate, 42% of India falls below the international poverty line of US$ 1.25 a day ; having reduced from 60% in 1981. A study by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative using a Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) found that there were 421 million poor living under the MPI in eight north India states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. This number is higher than the 410 million poor living in the 26 poorest African nations. However, latest report estimates by NCAER (National Council of Applied Economic Research), show that 48% of the Indian households earn more than 90,000 (US$ 2,043) annually . According to NCAER, in 2009, of the 222 million households in India, the absolutely poor households (annual income is below 45,000) accounted for only 15.6 % (about 200 million Indians). Another 80 million households are in income levels of 45,000-90,000 per year.

4. Since the 1950s, the Indian government and non-governmental organizations have initiated several programs to alleviate poverty, including subsidizing food and other necessities, and price supports, and promoting education and family planning. These measures have helped eliminate famines, cut absolute poverty levels by more than half, and reduced illiteracy and malnutrition.

5. Percent of population living under the poverty line, over the final quarter of the 20th century.

6. POVERTY ESTIMATES The World Bank estimates that 456 million Indians (41.6% of the total Indian population) now live under the global poverty line of US$ 1.25 per day. This means that a third of the global poor now reside in India. However, this also represents a significant decline in poverty from the 60 percent level in 1981 to 42 percent in 2005. The rupee has decreased in value since then, while the official standard of 538 (urban)/ 356 (rural) per month has remained the same. However, according to the latest NCAER estimates, in 2009, only 200 million people, had income levels less than 45,000 annually. On the other hand, the Planning Commission of India uses its own criteria and has estimated that 27.5% of the population was living below the poverty line in 2004–2005. The source for this was the 61st round of the National Sample Survey (NSS). 75% of the poor are in rural areas, most of them are daily wagers, self-employed householders and landless labourers.

7. Between 1999 and 2008, the annualized growth rates for Gujarat (8.8%), Haryana (8.7%), Delhi (7.4%) were much higher than for Bihar (5.1%), Uttar Pradesh (4.4%), or Madhya Pradesh (3.5%). Poverty rates in rural Orissa (43%) and rural Bihar (41%) are among the world's most extreme un the poverty category. A 2007 report by the state-run National Commission for Enterprises in the Un organized Sector (NCEUS) found that 77% of Indians, or 836 million people, lived on less than 20 rupees per day. It is relevant to view poverty in India on a PPP basis as food etc. are purchased in Rupees. So the annual income of a family of four members would be 1.37 lakh.

8. According to a recently released World Bank report, India is on track to meet its poverty reduction goals. However by 2015, an estimated 53 million people will still live in extreme poverty and 23.6% of the population will still live under US$1.25 per day. This number is expected to reduce to 268 million people by 2020. However, at the same time, the effects of the worldwide recession in 2009 have plunged 100 million more Indians into poverty than there were in 2004, increasing the effective poverty rate from 27.5% to 37.2%.

9. As per the 2001 census, 35.5% of Indian households availed of banking services, 35.1% owned a radio, 31.6% a television, 9.1% a phone, 43.7% a bicycle, 11.7% a scooter, motorcycle, and 2.5% a car, jeep, 34.5% of the households had none of these assets. According to Department of Telecommunications of India the phone density has reached 33.23% by Dec 2008 and has an annual growth of 40%. This tallies with the fact that a family of four with an annual income of 1.37 lacks Rupees could afford some of these luxury items.

10. CAUSES OF POVERTY IN INDIA Caste system In India Dalits constitute the bulk of poor. According to Indians casteism is widespread in rural areas, and continues to segregate Dalits. But then we(Indians) have also noted the steady rise and empowerment of the Dalits through social reforms and the implementation of reservations in employment and benefits. Caste explanations of poverty fail to account for the rural divide. Using the UN definition of poverty, 65% of rural forward castes are below the poverty line.

11. India's economic policies In 1947, the average annual income in India was US$439, compared with US$619 for China, US$770 for South Korea, and US$936 for Taiwan. By 1999, the numbers were US$1,818 for India, US$3,259 for China, US$13,317 for South Korea, and US$15,720 for Taiwan(numbers are in 1990 international Madison dollars). In other words, the average income in India was not much different from South Korea in 1947, but South Korea became a developed country by 2000s. At the same time, India was left as one of the world's poorer countries.

12. Hindu rate of growth is an expression used to refer to the low annual growth rate of the economy of India, which stagnated around 3.5% from 1950s to 1980s, while per capita income averaged 1.3%. At the same time, Pakistan grew by 5%, Indonesia by 6%, Thailand by 7%, Taiwan by 8%, and South Korea by 9%.

13. India had started out in the 1950s with: high growth rates openness to trade and investment a promotional state but ended the 1980s with: low growth rates (Hindu rate of growth) closure to trade and investment inability to sustain social expenditures Poverty has decreased significantly since reforms were started in the 1980s.

14. India currently adds 40 million people to its middle class every year. Analysts such as the founder of "Forecasting International", Marvin J. Citron writes that an estimated 300 million Indians now belong to the middle class; one-third of them have emerged from poverty in the last ten years. At the current rate of growth, a majority of Indians will be middle-class by 2025. Literacy rates have risen from 52 percent to 65 percent in the same period(during the above period).

15. EFFORTS TO ELIVIATE POVERTY Since the early 1950s, government has initiated, sustained, and refined various planning schemes to help the poor attain self sufficiency in food production. Probably the most important initiative has been the supply of basic commodities, particularly food at controlled prices, available throughout the country as poor spend about 80 percent of their income on food.

16. Outlook for poverty alleviation Eradication of poverty in India is generally only considered to be a long-term goal. Poverty alleviation is expected to make better progress in the next 50 years than in the past. Increasing stress on education, reservation of seats in government jobs and the increasing empowerment of women and the economically weaker sections of society, are also expected to contribute to the alleviation of poverty. It is incorrect to say that all poverty reduction programs have failed. The growth of the middle class indicates that economic prosperity has indeed been very impressive in India, but the distribution of wealth is not at all even for all(mainly the poor).

17. Controversy over extent of poverty reduction The definition of poverty in India has been called into question by the UN World Food Program. While total overall poverty in India has declined, the extent of poverty reduction is often debated. While there is a consensus that there has not been increase in poverty between 1993-94 and 2004-05. With the rapid economic growth that India is experiencing, it is likely that a significant fraction of the rural population will continue to migrate toward cities, making the issue of urban poverty more significant in the long run.

18. Some, like journalist P Sainath, hold the view that while absolute poverty may not have increased, India remains at a abysmal(extremely bad) rank in the UN Human Development Index. India is positioned at 132nd place in the 2007-08 UN HDI index. It is the lowest rank for the country in over 10 years. In 1992, India was at 122nd place in the same index. It can even be argued that the situation has become worse on critical indicators of overall well-being such as the number of people who are undernourished (India has the highest number of malnourished people, at 230 million, and is 94th of 119 in the world hunger index), and the number of malnourished children (43% of India's children under 5 are underweight ,BMI<18.5, the highest in the world) as of 2008.

19. Economist PravinVisaria has defended the validity of many of the statistics that demonstrated the reduction in overall poverty in India. India's former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha also declared that poverty in India has reduced significantly. He insisted that the 1999-2000 survey was well designed they should not be dismissed outright. Nicholas Stern, vice president of the World Bank, has published defenses of the poverty reduction statistics. India, together with China, have shown the clearest trends of globalization with the accelerated rise in per-capita income.

20. A study by the McKinsey Global Institute found that in 1985, 93% of the Indian population lived on a household income of less than 90,000 rupees a year, or about a dollar per person per day; by 2005 that proportion had been cut nearly in half, to 54%. More than 103 million people have moved out of desperate poverty in the course of one generation in rural areas. They project that if India can achieve 7.3% annual growth over the next 20 years, 465 million more people will be lifted out of poverty. Contrary to popular perceptions, rural India has benefited from this growth: extreme rural poverty has declined from 94% in 1985 to 61% in 2005, and they project that it will drop to 26% by 2025.

21. Persistence of malnutrition among children According to the New York Times, it is estimated that about 42.5% of the children in India suffer from malnutrition. The World Bank, citing estimates made by the World Health Organization, states "that about 49 per cent of the world's underweight children, 34 per cent of the world's stunted children and 46 per cent of the world's wasted children, live in India." The World Bank also noted that while poverty is often the underlying cause of malnutrition in children, the superior economic growth experienced by South Asian countries compared to those in Sub-Saharan Africa, has not translated into superior nutritional status for the South Asian child. A special commission to the Indian Supreme court has noted that the child malnutrition rate in India is twice as great as sub-Saharan Africa.

22. CONCLUSION This project is done by the information given by different people on the topic of POVERTY. I’ am sure that you liked my project.