F14-Poverty
According to this analysis, 27.4% of the population in rural areas, where the cut-off is set at Rs 2,515 per capita per month, and 23.7% in urban areas, with a cut-off of Rs 3,639 per capita per month, is below the poverty line. This contrasts sharply with the government’s claims of near-eradication of poverty and raises questions about the accuracy and intent of its statistics.https://thewire.in/economy/indians-living-in-poverty-could-be-five-times-higher-than-govt-estimates-study
This contradiction stems from methodological differences. The government’s approach of inflating older poverty lines fails to capture the rising costs of non-food essentials, such as healthcare, education and housing. In contrast, the Rangarajan method uses updated nutritional norms and a more detailed consumption basket (including essential non-food expenses), making it a more accurate reflection of current realities.
The Tendulkar committee (2009) estimated poverty based on per capita consumption expenditure, anchored in nutritional and calorie requirements. However, it faced criticism for setting poverty lines that were considered too low, potentially underestimating poverty levels.
Given the concerns about the inadequacy of the Tendulkar committee’s poverty thresholds and their inability to reflect actual living costs, the Rangarajan committee was established to revisit and propose a more comprehensive poverty estimation methodology.
by Payal Seth
02/02/2025
A recent study led by Sonalde Desai, a sociologist and professor at University of Maryland, College Park, and National Council of Applied Economic Research, challenges the notion that the relationship between people and poverty in India is linear even as the economy has grown rapidly over the last two decades. As opposed to millions of people escaping – or being lifted out of – chronic poverty over time, the study finds that people move in and out of poverty depending on life’s circumstances such as natural disasters, illness and other financial shocks. https://scroll.in/article/1077617/millions-lifted-out-of-poverty-in-india-but-many-still-lead-precarious-lives-on-the-edge
This phenomenon is called transient poverty, and it is difficult to measure because of lack of real-time data on households
Even as Indians are escaping poverty, according to Desai, they get placed on “a precarious perch where a single accident, natural disaster, or epidemic could push them back into poverty”.
Both Desai and Krishna singled out healthcare-related financial shocks as the top reason behind transient poverty in India. In 2011-’12, out-of-pocket expenditure on health drove 55 million Indians into poverty
"There are certain parts of India where there aren’t doctors, where there aren’t medical facilities,” Krishna said. This year, the government spent only about 1.2% of GDP on healthcare, according to The Lancet.
by Rohit Inani, IndiaSpend.com
12/01/2025
Lakshmina had been admitted to a hospital and had just given birth to a baby girl. The woman running the hospital asked for Rs 4,000 to discharge her. The couple did not have a single penny. Haresh requested the villagers for a loan but no one gave him any money. Helpless, he sold his son through a middleman. https://thewire.in/rights/behind-up-couple-forced-to-sell-son-for-rs-20000-an-inescapable-microfinance-debt-trap
When Haresh left farming, Lakshmina came in contact with a group of women. Microfinance companies showed her the dream of making her life better with loans. Between September and December 2023, Lakshmina and Haresh borrowed loans totalling over Rs 2 lakh from five microfinance companies. They attempted to pay instalments of one loan with the money from another loan, but in a few months all the cash was exhausted and they did not even have the money to pay the instalment.
Utkarsh Small Finance Bank lent a loan of Rs 30,000 to Lakshmina on November 18, 2023, which was to be repaid in 24 months with 25% actual interest. An instalment of Rs 740 was to be paid every fortnight. The microfinance company charged Rs 354 as processing fee, Rs 1,104 as other fees and Rs 750 as insurance fee for this loan. After deduction of these charges, she got only Rs 28,896 in hand, whereas she had to pay Rs 3,892 in 24 months including interest.
Lakshmina and Haresh have not been able to deposit amount towards this loan after April 2024.
The question arises as to why microfinance companies were giving loans to Lakshmina and Haresh, when anyone who visited their house could see their abject poverty. One microfinance company has stated Haresh’s annual income as Rs 3 lakh in its documents. If loan payments are not deposited, the borrowers are subjected to physical and mental harassment. The poor who are already financially destitute are being drained further.
In rural areas, the debt trap of microfinance companies is now firmly a death trap for the poor. Several incidents of death by suicide by people entangled in such webs of debt are coming to light. In December 2023, a woman trapped in microfinance debt died by suicide in Mishrauli village of Sevarhi area in Kushinagar district.
by Manoj Singh
17/09/2024
In 2021, three in four people in India could not afford a healthy diet. In South Asia, the pandemic disrupted work and disproportionately impacted poorer families.
Following the pandemic in 2020, the Indira Rasoi Yojana [now called Shree Annapurna Rasoi Yojana] was started by the Congress-led government in Rajasthan to provide subsidised nutritious meals for the urban poor.
Imediately after the pandemic-induced lockdown, Khera (along with Jean Drèze and Meghana Mungikar) had highlighted the exclusion of 100 million people from the government’s subsidised food grain programme which has more than 800 million beneficiaries. It is exacerbated by the indefinite delay in the population Census 2021, she said.
As India votes for the 18th Lok Sabha, we speak with Khera on various social security schemes including maternity entitlements, healthcare, food-related welfare like community kitchens, which are important in the context of the decline in real wages.
Amma’s canteens in Tamil Nadu were the first “on scale” initiative and were set up in 2013 (there have been such initiatives even before that). After this, Indira canteens were set up in Karnataka. Most recently, and perhaps overtaking these two states in terms of scale, was Rajasthan’s Indira Rasoi scheme that began in 2020 in response to the humanitarian crisis created by the Covid-19 lockdown. In November 2023, there were more than 1,100 Indira Rasois in Rajasthan. These canteens provide breakfast/lunch and dinner at Rs 3 to Rs 8 per plate.
Canteens have fostered the creation of democratic spaces in deeply divided (on caste and class lines) societies. One of the most remarkable was a canteen near a hospital in Jaipur where we saw patients, doctors, lab technicians and cleaning staff among others, eating in the same place.
by Shreehari Paliath, IndiaSpend
09/05/2024
https://thewire.in/economy/modi-amrit-kaal-hunger-unemployment
In a campaign speech in Chhattisgarh, Modi made the grand announcement that the scheme to distribute free food grains to 80 crore poor Indians, which was launched to mitigate the impact of COVID, will be extended for another five years. As is his wont, the PM boasted this was “Modi’s guarantee to the people of India”.
PM Modi cannot explain why the fastest growing economy which is poised to become the third largest by 2028 should distribute free food to 80 crore people. Is free ration to be provided for another five years because India is rapidly prospering and entering the Amrit Kaal?
by M.K. Venu
09/11/2023
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