Poverty in India has always been a reason of concern for its government. Immediately, after India gained its independence, the situation was not so favorable. More than 50% of the citizens were below the poverty line. One of the main reasons for this has also been the increasing number of population day by day. A poverty line is defined as the minimum level of income earned by an individual to be able to get an adequate standard of living. This includes getting required basic nutrition every day.
In India, there are many people who are unable to meet their minimum requirements of two meals per day. They struggle hard for their day to day living. It is surprising to note that though the economic growth of India is increasing day by day but yet the poverty is not decreasing that significantly.
Poverty in India can be divided into two significant groups, which are rural poverty and urban poverty. Rural poverty is the one where the population residing in the rural areas is below the poverty line. The main reasons for rural poverty include inadequate or very low source of income, high population, illiteracy and large families. Due to this arise in problems such as a large percentage of people are malnourished, illiterate and suffer from health diseases. They are exposed to unhygienic living conditions and inadequate housing facility. With this increases the crime rate too. Similarly, urban poverty is referred to the people who are below the poverty line and living in urban areas such as cities, towns, etc. These people are literate. However, still suffer from poverty, mainly due to two reasons, no proper training and very slow job growth. The urban poverty too bring with itself a lot of problems, which include, lack of employment, lack of proper housing and living facilities and lack of health and higher-education facilities.
Chronic poverty is also witnessed in India. It is the poverty which has been passed from one generation to another. Here, the state of a person is very poor in such a significant amount of time in their lives that it gets passed to his children and to get rid of it becomes extremely difficult. This kind of poverty is basically seen in rural areas of India only.
With time and right initiatives taken by the government of India, a large number of rural as well as urban people are getting educated as well as provided vocational trainings to be able to rise above the poverty line. People are getting more aware and willing to take up training in different fields thus making them capable of to be employed.
As per the latest reports today, the current percentage of people below the poverty line is 37%. Government of India has introduced various plans and measures to slow down the impact of poverty in India, but a significant slowdown is yet to be witnessed.