B4-INDIA ---THE "POVERTY LINE" AND OTHER MATTERS

Mother India loves every single person of her more than 1.3 billion children equally. In modern world, in minds of intellectuals and technocrats, a deep feeling for the poor suffering people has taken root. They feel impatient to root out poverty. Very sincere efforts are made by governments in every country to periodically measure “level of poverty” in various groups and communities and to render immediate help to suffering people. With this object  international institutions like World Bank, IMF, UNICEF, Asian Development Bank etc are created to guide and assist all countries. These institutions are manned by world’s best brains who  have very clear understanding of economic problems of poor people, poor communities and poor countries.

Assistance is provided by governments in the shape of cash grants, bank loans ,housing loans, scholarships , ration cards, famine relief assistance etc. For this purpose there should be a standard and quick method to identify eligible persons and separate ineligible people. Monthly/annual income certificates, property certificates and certificates of details of family members are granted by authorized high government officers. Special statistics are gathered from the “population census figures” and “special area surveys”. For doing all this type of work very accurate standards/measuring units are prescribed in every country by scholarly economic experts. The yardstick “for measuring the poverty level” is called "POVERTY LINE".

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Groups / individuals “above poverty line” and “below poverty line” are defined in an accurate mathematical statistical way. The “poverty line” is calculated based on the value of quatum of food grains and other goods and services needed at absolute minimum level for one average adult.  In simple language we can say that  people “below-poverty-line”  are unable to get two square meals a day. The Internet essays give lot of information about the “poverty level” measurement.

For example, for the year 2000, the poverty line for a person in India was fixed at Rs 328 per month for the rural areas and Rs 454 for the urban areas. This means that in the year 2000, a family of five members living in rural areas and earning less than about Rs 1,640 per month belonged to group “below the poverty line”.

Also, a person with daily income “below Rs.32 in rural areas” and “below Rs.47 in urban areas” is to be classified as  “below poverty line”. We can generally realize that  a family with monthly income below  Rs 2000/ or Rs 3000/is to be treated as a “poor family”.  As per these standards almost 30% of India’s total population lived “below poverty line” till a few years back.