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During the British rule, the British did not show any interest in investing money in irrigation project in India. On the other hand repeated drought, zamindari system, high tenancy santh system destroyed economic condition of the farmers.

Social Groups Vulnerable to Poverty :

→ Scheduled caste households

→ Scheduled tribe households
Economic Groups Vulnerable to Poverty :

→ Rural agricultural labour households

→ Urban casual labour households

• History says that in 17th century India was comparatively a more urbanized and most commercialized nation. India had a stronghold in export of items like cotton textile, silk, spices, paddy, etc.
• India was ruined after the entry of foreign rulers namely, British, French and Dutch and their colonization.
• The British did not show any interest in investing money in irrigation project in India. On the other hand repeated drought, zamindari system, high tenancy santh system destroyed economic condition of the farmers.
• The British used to frame and follow such trade, tax and industrial policies in India which could benefit mostly the British.
• Thus, both industries and agriculture got ruined during the British rule.

Causes for rural poverty:

The causes for rural poverty can be divided into two parts.

1. Natural causes:.

• India has been an agricultural country from beginning. Even today majority of the population lives in villages and is dependent on agriculture.
• In India, agriculture is mainly dependent on natural factors like rain, weather conditions, etc. Frequent droughts, uncertainty of monsoon and floods result -in low production and less and uncertain income for people involved in agriculture. Hence, nature has become a cause for poverty.

2. Demographic factors:

After independence and during the planning period India’s economy grew rapidly. With this India also made rapid increase in the health services.

• Owing to all these factors, India’s death -rate declined but birth-rate did not reduce. This led to population explosion.
• Due to high population the per capita income did not increase much. Low per capita income and big size of families resulted in poor quality of life.
• There were insufficient employment opportunities for the fast growing population. As a result, people were forced to work in low wages and this made them poorer.

1. Low agricultural productivity per labour,
2. Unequal distribution of land and property,
3. Minimal development of small and cottage industry,
4. Rapid increases in prices and
5. High rate of unemployment.

The reasons for poverty in the rural regions of India are : 

1. Lack of education and technical know how. 

2. Excessive dependence on agriculture. 

3. Irregular employment. 

4. Indebtdness. 

5. Social backwardness and lack of mobility of labour. 

6. Faulty Public Distribution System. 

7. Slow rate of growth in agricultural production.

Natural causes:

• India has been an agricultural country from beginning. Even today majority of the population lives in villages and is dependent on agriculture.
• In India, agriculture is mainly dependent on natural factors like rain, weather conditions, etc. Frequent droughts, uncertainty of monsoon and floods result -in low production and less and uncertain income for people involved in agriculture. Hence, nature has become a cause for poverty.

The Right to Work states that everyone should be given the opportunity to work for a basic living.

After years of struggle by people’s groups the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), 2005 was passed.

Public Distribution: The system of ration shops distributing foodgrains and other System essential items is known as the Public Distribution System.

Alongside employment, the government has to ensure that everyone has access to affordable food.

The system of ration shops distributing foodgrains and other essential items is known as the Public Distribution System.

Correct option is (A) 5.09%

There are programmes introduced by the Government to improve the food and nutritional status of poor.

They are as follows:

• Public distribution system (PDS)
• Integrated child development scheme (ICDS) 
• Mid-day meals scheme.

The transient poor are those people who are rich most of the time but may sometimes have a pitch of bad luck.

These are the person who always remains as poor for a long period of time, ex: casual workers, agricultural labourer’s, ragpickers, beggars etc.,

Indira Awas Yojana.

‘Pradhan Manthri Rojgar Yojana’.

The categories of poverty are :

• Chronic poor
• Transient poor
• Never poor or non-poor.

1. Bihar

2. Orissa

‘Swarna jayanthi Shahari Rozgar Yojana’ (SJSRY).

The important features of poorest households:

• The poor people possess few assets and live in huts but the poorest of them do not even. have such huts also.
• They will not have capacity to eat a square meal a day.
• Starvation, hunger, lack of basic literacy and skills.

In September, 2005.

Main features of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005:
→ The Act assures 100 days employment every year to every household.
→ Initially covering 200 districts, the Act would be extended later on to cover 600 districts.
→ One-third of the jobs are reserved for women.

Three main features of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) are:

(i) The NREGAs 2005 was passed in September 2005.

(ii) It aims to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

(iii) It guarantees 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. One-third of the proposed jobs would be reserved for women.

(iv)The central government will also establish National Employment Guarantee funds.

(v) Apart from providing economic security and creating rural assets, NREGA can help in protecting the environment, empowering rural women, reducing rural-urban migration and fostering social equity, among others.

(vi) Later, the scheme will be extended to 600 districts. One third of the proposed Jobs would be reserved for women.

(vii) If an applicant is not provided employment within 15 days, she/he will be entitled to a daily unemployment allowance.

The traditional meaning of poverty (income poverty):

• When a certain minimum level of per capita consumption and expenditure is required to decide the minimum basic needs of people it is known as poverty line. All the people who are earning and spending below this poverty line are known as poor.
• Thus, the traditional definition of poverty defines poverty on the basis of a person’s income.
  Limitation:
• The limitation of income based poverty is that it only reflects one aspect i.e. income.
• Income alone cannot be a sole measure of poverty. There are other aspects like education, clothes, housing, drinking water, sanitation, etc. which reflect an overall picture of poverty.

1. Absolute Poverty:

• The minimum expenditure or income required to satisfy the minimum basic needs and services is known as poverty line. The population having income or expenditure below this poverty line Eire said to be absolutely poor.
• Absolute poverty is also known as complete poverty.

2. Relative Poverty:

• In the concept of relative poverty, income inequality existing in different groups of people living in society is considered. Therefore lower income class is considered poor than the higher income class. For example, a person earning ₹ 3 lakhs per year is poor relatively to the person earning ₹ 4 lakhs per year. But the same person is not poor relative to the other person who is earning ₹ 2.50 lakhs per year.
• Poverty Line: Poverty line is an arbitrary line denoting the minimum income or expenditure required to satisfy primary necessities of life. Those living blow the line are called poor, and those living above the line are not poor.

Meaning of Poverty:

• If a larger population is living below the minimum required standard of living, there exist poverty.
• Poverty being a relative concept, its meaning changes with time, place and society.

1. Traditional meaning of Poverty OR Income Poverty:

A certain normative minimum level of per capita consumption expenditure required to ascertain minimum basic needs and services is called poverty line.

• People who have less than required income or spend less than required minimum expenditure are said to be poor.
• Thus, poverty is a state of scarcity.
• Poverty line shows the situation of non-availability of food or starvation.
• Poverty is not only the situation of starvation. It includes apart from food other necessities required for minimum standard of living.

2. Modern meaning of Poverty OR Non-income Poverty:

• For minimum required ‘ standard of living, apart from food, other necessities such as clothing, housing, education, health, cleanliness, pure drinking water are also required. This modern approach of poverty is called non-income poverty.
• In modern approach of poverty, with income other important elements of human development such as knowledge, long and healthy life, good standard of living, individual freedom, availability of opportunity, life with choices and self-respect, etc. are also considered.

To provide gainful employment for unemployed and underemployed persons in rural areas.

In the year 1979.

Integrated Rural Development Programme.

• Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) / Suvarana Jayanti Gram Svarojgar Yojna (SGSY):
• During 6th five year plan, various agencies were running different programmes for rural poor. On 2nd October, 1980 all these programmes were merged under one programme called Integrated Rural Development Programme (iRDP).
• Following programmes were integrated with IRDP:
  1. IRDP (Integrated Rural Development Programme)
  2. TRYSEM (Training Rural Youth and Self-Employment Programme)
  3. DWCRA (Development of Women and Child in Rural Areas)
  4. MWS (Million Well Scheme)
  5. SITRA (Supplying Improved Toolkit to Rural Artisans)
  6. GWS (Ganga Welfare Scheme)
• The main objective of IRDP is to encourage poor families for self-employment so that they can come above poverty line.
• This programme focused on few special groups which include small and marginal farmers, agricultural labourers and rural artisans.
• Later, on 1st April, 1990 IRDP and other programmes integrated with it were merged and named as Suvarna Jayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojna.
• These schemes encouraged development of small trade. They also aimed at providing self-help groups the necessary infrastructural facilities, technology loan, facility of market to final goods, etc. to rural poor

Correct option is (B) Dandekar and Rath committee

Based on BPL survey results, three types of cards were issued.

1. Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP) is the “earliest area development programme” launched by the Central Government in 1973-74 to tackle the specific problems faced by those fragile areas which are constantly affected by severe drought conditions. 

2. The basic obj ective of this programme is to minimise the adverse effects of drought on production of crops and livestock and productivity of land, water and human resources, ultimately leading to drought proofing of the affected areas.

In the year 1993.

Social security schemes:

• As a strategy to reduce poverty in India, various social security schemes were, started for workers of unorganized sector.
• Atal Pension Yojna (APY) was started on 9th May, 2015 to provide monthly pension to people above 60 years.
• Along with the pension scheme a scheme called Prime Minister Security Scheme was also launched. Under this scheme, people in the age of 18 to 70 years are provided accident insurance of ₹ 2 lac at a very low premium of ₹ 12. Under Jivan Jyoti Scheme people are provided life insurance of ₹ 2 lakhs at a premium of ₹ 330 per year.
• To safeguard farmers from crop failure Prime Minister Fasal Bima Yojna was (PMFBY) started.

Methods to determine the poverty line in India are : 

1. To estimate the limit on consumption, public expenditure and consumer goods expenditure implied by the government are not considered. Under this, only private expenditure is considered. 

2. Poverty ratio is also defined by calorie consumption.

3. For private consumption expense components, both, food items and non-food items are taken in consideration. 

4. After every class interval, frequencies are recorded, and each of these frequencies portrays the number of people associated with it. 

5. Finally census or people counting is conducted which shows the poor and non poor people of the rural and urban sectors separately. This count exhibits the percentage of population below the poverty line.

The initial estimates of poverty were represented by B .S. Minhas, V.M. Dandekar, N.K. Rath, P.K. Vardhan, and M.S. Ahluwalia. All these estimates portray the fact that in the decade of 60s, the poverty ratio was quite high. They also presented the fact that the number of poors is higher in rural areas and poverty was particularly rife in marginal and small farmers and in landless agricultural labourers.

According to Tendulkar estimates, in the year 2011-12, five states having the highest poverty are :

1. Bihar-33.74 per cent 

2. Chhattisgarh – 39.93 per cent 

3. Jharkhand- 36.96 per cent 

4. Odisha- 32.59 per cent 

5. Madhya Pradesh-31.65 per cent.

1. Prof. Suresh Tendulkar. 

2. Dr. C. Rangarajan 

3. M. S. Ahluwalia.

The trickle-down effect is a model of product adoption in marketing that affects many consumer goods and services. It states that fashion flows vertically from the upper classes to the lower classes within the society, each social class influenced by a higher social class.

Answer is:  (d) All these

According to the 2011 -12 plan, rupees 816 per capita per month in rural areas and rupees 1000 per capita per month for urban areas was defined as poverty line.

54.0 per cent.

56.4 per cent in rural areas and 49.0 per cent in urban areas.

Rs. 1000 per person per month.

(a) 37.1 per cent

Under the chairmanship of D.T. Lakrawala.

(d) All of the above

Answer is: (c)1989