1. 1. INTRODUCTION
Since India became part of the global economy and underwent economic reform in 1991, its
economy is growing at a faster rate of nearly 10 per cent per annum. In the process, India has
become the fourth largest economy in the world. In the last two decades, a significant
proportion of the population across the country has reaped the benefits of this economic
growth. They have become the part of global economy and market, and their lives have
transformed into one of global citizens with all the comforts and luxury in life Apart from this
burgeoning middle class in the country, the economic growth seemed to have touched the
lives of the poor also. According to the National Sample Survey results, people living below
poverty line have dramatically come down during the post economic reform era. People
living below poverty line (BPL) came down from 36 per cent in 1993-1994 to 26 per cent in
1999-2000. However, the intention of this paper is not to join the debate on the level of
poverty reduction in the country but to recognize the reduction of poverty in the country
during the post-economic reform era and to undertake a social audit of poverty alleviation
programmes in this era of fast economic growth.
2. SIGNIFICANCE OF POVERTY ALLEVIATION
PROGRAMMES IN INDIA DEVELOPMENT
The fruits of economic growth have not benefited everyone uniformly. Some are left behind
and some others are not touched by the benefits of economic growth. It is proved globally
that the so-called trickle down effect does not work in all the societies and India is no
exception to this. There are various reasons for this uneven development in the society.
Modern economy is technology driven and not labour-intensive. High volume of high quality
goods and services are produced with fewer labour hands. In short, the modern economy is
not generating much employment and sometimes it displaces and replaces labour with
machines and tools. The period of 1999-2000 to 2004- 2005 saw rapid economic growth in
the country but it has not impacted on the unemployment problem of the country. During this
period, the unemployment rate remained almost same for rural males and decreased by just
one percentage for urban male. On the other hand, unemployment among females increased
by one percentage for urban and rural females One-third of the country’s population is still
illiterate and a majority are not educated up to the age of 15 yr. Even among the educated, all
do not have employable skills of the modern economy. The education system is not tuned to
the changing economic scenario. The large agriculture workforce in rural areas is not
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2. sustainable with dwindling cultivable land and use of modern methods of cultivation. As a
result, the rural labour is pushed into cities in search of work but they do not have any
employable skills in the urban formal sector often end up doing odd jobs in urban areas.
Urbanization in this country is mainly due to acute poverty in rural areas rather than due to
the economic opportunities in urban areas. Further, poverty is not uniformly spread in the
country. States like Orissa, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh have high level of poverty and the
levels have not come down significantly in the posteconomic reform era.
It is therefore that clear while the economic reform did bring in prosperity to the country, the
benefits are not evenly distributed and some are even deprived of the benefits. It is also
pertinent to understand that some of them are unable to be part of the economic reform and
do not have the capacity to participate in the economic development process. Such groups
need government intervention to ensure that they are not left behind in the development
process and deprived of the benefits because they do not have the capacity to be part of the
global economy. The government needs to develop safety nets for such groups and try to
mainstream them in the development process. They need welfare measures in the form of
poverty alleviation programmes to ensure that they survive if not prosper in this era of
economic reform. Further, the poor are not a homogeneous population and their capacity to
survive the economic reform varied from one group of poor to another. Especially, those who
are below the poverty line or the poorest among the poor need more government help.
3. POVERTY ALLEVIATION PROGRAMMES IN INDIA
Jawhar Gram Samridhi Yojna
This programme was earlier called jawhar rozgar yojna. Its name then got changed to Jawhar
Gram Samridhi Yojna .It was started on 1 April 1999. The main aim of this programme was
development of rural infrastructure. Belief that good rural infrastructure would give rise to
many opportunities which poor rural people could benefit and improve their condition.
Infrastructure like roads to connect the village to different area, which made the village more
accessible and also other social, educational(schools) and infrastructure like hospitals. Its
secondary objective was to give out sustained wage employment. This was only given to BPL
(below the poverty line)familnder was to be spent for individual beneficiary schemes for SCs
and ST's and 3% for establishment of barrier free infrastructure for the disabled people.The
village panchayats were one of the main governing body of this programme. There it did not
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3. feel like an outsider was controlling it, the village panchayats were a part of the people and
understood their needs. Th000 1841.80 crore was used and they had a target of 8.57 lakh
works, 5.07 lakh works were completed during 1999-2000.
Employment Assurance Scheme(EAS)
This scheme was started on 1 October 1993. It was first started in 1772 backward areas in
257 districts. The revamped public distribution system was in operation here. It was later
expanded to all the 5448 rural blocks of the country. The employment assurance scheme was
later renamed red in 1999-2000 to the single wage employment programme. The main
objective was to create wage employment opportunities through manual work for the people
inrea living below the poverty line in the time of acute shortage of wage employment. The
other objective is creation of durable community and social and economic for sustained
employment and development of the poor. This scheme is available all the poor andy people
living below the poverty line who cannot help themselves.preto SC and STs and also to
parents of children those who have just been saved from child labour and from hazardous
working conditions who are bellow the poverty line.Also only 2 adults of the family are given
wage employment.This progamme is carried out and implemented through zilla parishads and
in those states where zilla parishads are not there, it is implemented through DRDA's. The
zilla parishads finalize all the works in their jurisdiction which is approved my the
MP's(members of parliament)The zliia parisahds are allowed to spend 15% of the funds for
the maintenance of the assets formed and created under this scheme. During 1999 and 2000
they had an target of 4091.63 mandays, 2566.39 lakh mandays were created and the total
allocation of funds during that year was 2431.46 crore and the amount that was used was Rs
1998.26 crore.
National Old Age Pension Scheme(NOAPS)
As the name suggest this scheme provided pension to old people who were above the age of
65 who could not fend for them selves and did not have any means of substinence. The
pension that was given was Rs 200 a month. This pension is given by the central government.
The job of implementation of this scheme in states and union territories is given to
panchayats and municipalities. The states contribution may vary depending on the state.
National Family Benefit Scheme(NFBS)
This scheme was started in August 1995 by GOI. This scheme is sponsored by the state
government. It was transferred to the state sector scheme after 2002-03. It is under the
community and rural department.This scheme provides a sum of 10000Rs to a person of a
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4. family who become the head of the family after the death of its primary breadwinner. A
breadwinner is a person who is above 18 who earns the most for the family and the family
survives on his/her earnings. It is for families below the poverty line.
National Maternity Benefit Scheme
This scheme provides a sum of 500 Rs to a pregnant mother for the first two live births. The
women have to be older than 19 years of age. It is given normally 12–8 weeks before the
birth and in case of the death of the child the women can still avail it.
The NSAP is implemented by states and union territories with the help of panchayats and
municipalities. During 1999–2000 the total allocation of funds for this scheme was 767.05
crores and the amount used was Rs 596.99 crores.
ANNAPURNA
This scheme was started by the government in 1999-2000 to provide food to senior citizens
who cannot take care of themselves and are not under the targeted public distribution
system(TPDS), and who have no one to take care of them in their village. This scheme would
provide 10 kg of free food grains a month for the eligible senior citizens. The allocation for
this scheme as off 2000-01 was Rs 100 crore.
Integrated Rural Development programme
This programme was started in 1978 and it later merged with Swarna Jayanti Gram
Swaorzgar Yojana in 1999.
Rural Housing-Indira Awaas Yojana(IAY)
This scheme aimed at creating housing for everyone. It aimed at creating 20 lakh housing
units out of which 13lakhs were in rural area.This scheme also would give out loans to people
at subsidized rates to make houses .It was started in 1999-2000. In in 1999-2000 1438.39
crore Rs was used for this scheme and about 7.98 lakh units were built. In 2000-01 an central
outlay of 1710.00 crores Rs was provided for this scheme.
4. ACHIEVEMENTS IN POVERTY ERADICATION
The reforms India started in 1991 hold the promise of considerable improvements in the
living standards of the country's 300 million poor. During the last few decades, India's
inward-looking and public sector driven industrialization strategy led to rates of growth and
poverty reduction far more modestly than those witnessed elsewhere in the world,
particularly in South East Asia. The economy has responded well to the reforms, and the
government has made it an explicit objective to accelerate the development of the country's
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5. human resources. The last five years have shown the rates of growth that India could achieve
with market oriented development policies and a better integration with the world economy.
There is much that remains to be done to sustain this growth. Reforms are particularly needed
to reduce the country's persistently high fiscal deficits, overcome its tremendous
infrastructure problems, improve the efficiency of its financial system, and liberalize parts of
the economy that remain heavily regulated — such as agriculture, small scale industry and
urban land markets. By maintaining its commitment to economic liberalization, and
redirecting towards infrastructure, health, and education the large resources now absorbed by
subsidies inter-alia for power, irrigation, and fertilizers, India can give its long battle to
reduce poverty a new impetus.
There is little evidence that anti-poverty programs have yielded gains in the living standards
of the poor commensurate with the significant resources that the country allocates to such
programs. Many recipients of their benefits are widely recognized as amongst the poor. At
the same time, many of the poorest people do not use these programs while many of the non-
poor benefit from them. There is a consensus that public works programs have been among
the most successful attempts at reaching the poor.
India therefore urgently needs to formulate an anti-poverty strategy that is fiscally sustainable
and more finely targeted to those who truly cannot benefit from the opportunities offered by
growth. To increase their cost effectiveness and extend their outreach to the very poor, safety
nets need to be targeted to those who either cannot participate in the growth process or face
continuing exposure to risks, which are outside of their control. Rural households are largely
uninsured against agricultural yield shocks, for example. Effective safety nets that insure the
rural poor against income fluctuations — such as public works programs — are essential in
overcoming an important market failure
The reduction of poverty has been a major concern of the Government of India since
independence in 1947. As such the analysis of poverty enjoys a long-standing tradition with
an extremely rich literature and data base. India has one of the longest series of national
household surveys — spanning over 40 years — suitable for tracking living conditions of the
poor over time. In many respects, India therefore stands out from other countries in terms of
its tradition of data collection and its pioneering of many of the techniques of data analysis,
which have now become common currency throughout the world. However, access to
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6. household survey data remains highly restricted. There are an enormous number of urgent
questions such as those relating to the incidence analysis of public expenditure that could
better inform policy in the future if such data were accessible
5. CONCLUSION
Debate on poverty in India has remained mostly in the domain of economists. Poverty is
defined in terms of income, expenditure and nutritional value (calorie intake). Social
dimension of poverty is a neglected area of study. Poverty is more of social marginalization
of an individual, household or group in the community/society rather than inadequacy of
income to fulfill the basic needs. Indeed, inadequate income is therefore one of the factors of
marginalization but not the sole factor. The goal of poverty alleviation programme should
aim merely increasing the income level of individual, household or group but mainstreaming
marginalized in the development process of the country. The country cannot claim economic
growth when a section of the people are marginalized to the periphery of the society. The
rapid economic growth process should accelerate the access to services like education and
health services for all, especially the marginalized citizens. The link between ignorance and
poverty and ill health and poverty are well-established. There are diseases of poverty such as
malaria, tuberculosis, diarrhoea and malnutrition. Having fallen ill due to poverty, the poor
do not have the resources to seek quality health care, for which he/she has to borrow money
for treatment. Indebtness due to hospitalization leading to poverty has been well documented.
Poverty therefore is a complex phenomenon of many dimensions not merely the economic
dimension. Poverty alleviation programmes should address the issue of poverty from broader
social and economic perspectives.
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